​It was dark. Driving in my car up a slight rise, a young deer suddenly appeared in my lights to the side of the road. It startled me. I lost focus for a micro-second. That was enough.
 
Looking back to the two-lane highway where the beams of my lights directed me north, another fawn appeared the middle of the road. Instantaneously I jammed the brakes and yanked the steering wheel right, the car swerving.

So, so close. Almost missed it. Not quite. The front left bumper grazed the young deer ever-so-slightly. There was the telltale “bam” of plastic/metal meeting the fawn. It stunned me, traumatized me, but I had to move on.
 
Afterwards (a day or so, looking back), I got into the “what if” game. What if I’d done this instead? What if x, y or z hadn’t happened?
 
It made me consider the variables necessary for an accident to occur. Time and place certainly come into play. If you weren’t at the exact time and location, you wouldn’t have had the accident. It was random circumstances.
 
That evening I took a different route than I normally did to the basketball game I was going to referee. Why did I do that? It’s slightly odd. I’m not a big user of GPS on my phone to direct me to where I’m driving. I tend to keep extensive directions and knowledge in my brain to know where I’m headed.
 
That night though, I chose to use GPS, instead of my regular route to the high school. The new route was where the accident occurred. Random.
 
If I’d driven to the game slightly earlier, it would still have been light out rather than dark. My eyesight would have been better. It would have been easier to see the deer from farther away. Again, another random factor likely contributing to the accident.
 
Here’s another thought: what if another car had been in front of me? They would have braked and startled the deer away (hopefully not making contact). There would not have been a deer in the road if I was right behind another vehicle.

Similarly, if a car had come from the opposite direction and illuminated the road, the deer would likely have fled before I arrived. A seemingly small variable like that could have prevented the accident.
 
My wife uses her bright car lights regularly. She wants to know what’s ahead, what might be lurking to the sides of roads. I don’t do this. What if, instead, I’d taken her perspective and regularly used my brights while driving down country roads? I’d have one less cracked front bumper.
 
Slight threads change things. Random variables can cause things.

I continue to contemplate this. Not really the “why” of the accident. You’ll never figure that out.

But, I do focus on all those variables that had to come together for the accident to occur. Remove one of them, or add another, and you drive away with no event.
 
Do I have any advice? Not much, and it’s pretty basic.
 
Be careful. Look for deer. Use your brights on lonely country roads. Know your route. Accidents are sometimes just accidents.

​Some people have too much time on their hands. Given how fast paced our society is these days, all the distractions, responsibilities and options, it’s hard to believe that there are still bored people with nothing to do.  But there are, and some indicators demonstrate why they have nothing better to do with their spare time.
 
Though I am not a big poster on Facebook, I do use the site to keep up with friends, see how they are doing, put up pictures when something significant happens in my (our family) life. Keep people posted. Those with too much time on their hands have other ideas about what to place on Facebook.
 
Rather than occasionally posting or putting some thought into what they put online, some people  randomly post and post and post and post. You wonder what’s so important about those posts and why they feel a need to put certain things online for others to peruse.

Let’s take an example. One guy I know lets everyone know where he’s traveling. He clicks to show his location – an airport, restaurant or train station, whatever. Like we care. Maybe burglars care and can follow his account then check to see if his house is deserted so they can rob him. I don’t want to know you are traveling or eating out. Drop it, please.
 
Another guy is the political poster. He puts up item after item disparaging a politician or a party. Over and over and over, the memes, pictures, links attack someone. It’s old, it’s boring, please stop.
 
You can tell another person has too much time on his hands because he repeatedly pulls up comics and puts them out there for us disinterested people to read and wonder what the heck the point is that he’s trying to make. When something is too esoteric and convoluted, why choose to share that? You have too much time on your hands. We don’t care.
 
Another guy is the resident foodie. You probably find them on your feed, too. They take pictures of food that always looks delectable.

The recipe is included. Sometimes there’s even a video to demonstrate in fast forward speed how to put the dish together and make it appear like it is the tastiest dish you’ve ever had in your life. I don’t deny that many of these look wonderful and sometimes find myself salivating, but hey, don’t you have something better to do with your time? I guess not.
 
Then, of course, there’s the guy (and, oddly enough, all of this people are “men”; perhaps women aren’t allowed on the list of “bored” people) who loves his music so much that he must share all his favorite albums and songs. This sub-genre spins in many directions.
 
He may post a song. He may post his top ten albums of all-time once a week until you go glassy-eyed. When done, he finds new ways to inundate you with his music choices and knowledge, none of which you care about.
 
I know, I know, there is a quick and easy solution: don’t go on Facebook. Turn it off. I agree. Still, there are good friends I have there and many interesting and worthwhile posts that engage me.
 
So, you hit the site, scroll quickly, delete and hide certain posts, sometimes unfriend someone, and yawn repeatedly, as the boring cream-of-wheat content whips past your eyes. My advice to those who spend so much time thinking we care about repetitious information is this: go outside, chop wood, work up a sweat, go hunting, find a new fishing hole, plant a garden, walk the dog, build a chair in your garage, read a book, take up a new hobby. That will keep you off social media for bit and maybe help create some interesting content for your next post.

​So many tribes…. To join or not to join, that is the question.
 
We all thrive in tribes. Without even knowing it, you’ll probably part of several.
 
There are those tribes we join for a purpose – Rotary, a church, a cooking club, for example. And, there are some we fall into through default, like our families, the community in which we were raised, the schools attended based on your residence.
 
Regardless of your entry to a tribe, it has a preferred culture. Certain ways of thinking, acting, speaking, handshakes, attitudes, rituals can all come into play.
 
I joined one this year without really knowing it. It’s called the “Orange Subaru Crosstrek” tribe. Let me explain.
 
In late spring, I purchased a used Orange Subaru Crosstrek (OSC), not knowing the tribe I was about to join. Soon thereafter, every time an OSC popped up on my drive, I noticed the driver would wave or raise a finger from the steering wheel in acknowledgment of our car tribe.
 
I knew nothing of this before the purchase. Instead, it became clear that I’d entered into a select group based on what, it is difficult to say. Something to do with bright colors, outdoor activities, perhaps something related to a counter culture view of the world? I’m not really sure, but that’s my reasoned guess.
 
The raised finger or hand wave is an acknowledgement. “Yo, good to see someone else with the same taste.” This never happened with other vehicles I’ve owned, hence the branding of OSC as a tribe. There’s something unique bonding us.
 
The finger wave is a communication of togetherness. I did not know this 40-some-odd years ago. The guy who eventually became best man in my wedding taught me about the gesture.
 
He drove a green monster of a car from the 1960s or 1970s. Like a boat, it sailed. One day, he, with his typical trademark humor began lifting a finger in greeting as we drove to a campsite down a mostly empty rural Virginia backroad.

Giggling, he went, “Watch this.”
 
A car approached. He lifted his finger. The beat-up pickup truck driver smiled and lifted his finger in a return greeting. My buddy was overjoyed.
 
This became a game the rest of the trip, lifting the finger in a wave, and older grizzled men (typically) -- probably farmers and hunters – returned the greeting. It was wonderful. We were a tribe. My friend couldn’t get enough of it.
 
This greeting still works today if you choose to notice. Not necessarily in our rushed urban and suburban areas, but getting outside to the two-lane higher where traffic and tensions ease.
 
I still do the finger wave in those more lightly trafficked areas, and with police officers. Law enforcement is another tribe that offers you belonging through the windshield.
 
The OSC and finger waving are about camaraderie, a greeting, letting the other individual know that you and I are alike in some way, share something, belong to the same tribe. It’s a very good human feeling. Try it sometime and see who you connect with. You might find bright colors or driving a snowplow suit you.

​The phrase, “cutting edge TV,” may seem like an oxy moron to many. Let’s pretend though for the sake of argument that there have been and continue to be television shows that push the limits and make you appreciate talent, entertainment, plots, dialogue, angles of shots, tension, humor, enlightenment, technology, ideas, action.
 
You can choose the positives. What encompasses “cutting edge TV?” And what shows would you put in that category?  That’s going to be the fun part of this exercise.
 
I go back a long way, so my timeframe will be different from most people reading this. I think, in short, cutting edge TV includes shows that broke boundaries in a specific way. They were different. They grew the audience and got people to watch the show who otherwise might not have. They expanded TV’s reach.
 
Oldies to newbies:

• The Ed Sullivan Show – not sure how this show is categorized (a variety show, perhaps?), but he brought the Beatles to the U.S., so it has to be cutting edge.
• The Twilight Zone – terror and weirdness rises to a new level. Try sleeping after you watch it. Not gonna happen, the bed sweats take over along with paranoia.
• The Dick Van Dyke Show – wow, what acting and writing. Though if you watch it today, there are outdated roles and stereotypes, the pure acting is fantastic and Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke shine.
• Soul Train – I remember watching this in high school for the funkiness, dancing and new rhythms I would otherwise never have been exposed to.
• All in the Family – could this show be produced today? Probably not.
• 60 Minutes – though I feel it is but a shell of what it once was, the early years of the show brought a new depth to spotlighting lengthy coverage on the screen of an issue not otherwise covered.
• The Mary Tyler Moore Show – our mother’s favorite, this has to be included as part of the women’s movement, heading out on your own, the unique challenges faced with grace, humor and creativity. MTM shines in this one too. Brilliance.
• Star Trek – medical devices the scan and heal you; beaming objects and humans to new locations; a man’s head kept alive by a machine; WHOA, that’s some serious sh….t.
• Saturday Night Live – still around after all these years. Live comedy rules.
• The Simpson’s – my older brother consistently calls this show “genius” and though I don’t go that far, we’ll give him the nod.
• “24” – the entire show taking place over 24 hours gave this an unmatched intensity.
• Survivor – still on the air after all these years. They keep adapting and people keep watching. The ultimate in reality shows, bar none.
• Lost – though it devolved into another time warp zone when they didn’t know what to do with the plot, I would argue the first two seasons were absolute domination when it comes to weirdness and speculation. “What the heck happened here?” Then you wanted to find out.
• The Office – captures workplace humor on TV like Dilbert in the comics. Great stuff.
• The Daily Show with Jon Stewart – a new way of reporting, digging through the news clips and using humor to get the audience to think, laugh and question. Can humor make us smarter?
• Breaking Bad – it took people telling me to watch the show for three or four years before I finally did, then the addiction kicked in. Couldn’t turn it off. “My Baby Blue” closing out the last episode is a classic.
• Ted Lasso – sorry folks, but I’ve never watched it, so I rely on everyone else’s opinions to include it. I’m confident they are right, and someday I will get around to checking it out.
• Dr. Pimple Popper – what can I say, I’m hooked. When I first watched this show, I was intrigued. The more I watched, the more it sucked me into the stories, the redemption, how people’s lives were changed by their treatment, and how badly the medical community treated the individuals seeking treatment for highly unusual skin conditions.

 
Add your own. What are they?

​It’s that time of year when your VCR becomes ever more important if you appreciate saturating your senses with college football/basketball and the NFL. There’s too much to keep up with. Your television set can’t do the job.
 
This means deploying other methods – specifically, recording those games that appeal to you. You might consider special rivalries or big games that factor into the playoffs, or just plain intriguing matchups like the Army-Navy game. If you follow football and/or basketball, there is huge overlap in the November-January time frame. You can’t watch them all. So, you record them and fast forward through the dead time.
 
Recently, a problem has occurred though. Due to the increasing length of games, commercials, timeouts, I’ve missed the end of several critical games. Not the end of the world, no question, but still irritating. Another First World problem.
 
Here’s what happens. You set the recording for the time and station. Simple enough. Every time I do this for college basketball/football and the NFL, I click the settings to add a half hour to the game. I figure all the game-ending timeouts and commercials will always make the game go longer by 30 minutes or less.

This has been true and effective for several years. Barring a quintuple overtime football game, I was always able to watch the entire game by adding those extra minutes.

For some reason though (and I haven’t quite figured this out yet; perhaps you the reader can help me), this fall has seen games going longer than usual (meaning longer than the 30 extra minutes that the game already shouldn’t need). Multiple recorded games that included the extra half hour did NOT end up recording the full game.

This means these contests are now going more than half an hour longer than scheduled.  Easily remedied, yes, as you just need to set your device to record an extra HOUR instead of half-an-hour, which is what I’m doing.

The big question though is WHY? What’s going on with the increased length of the contests? Has there been a slow creep in terms of commercial interruptions? Do the games not start on time?
 
I believe there are three components to this additional time extension: 1) as noted above, it appears as if the start of games takes longer. Since I fast forward through all that crap, it’s hard to tell how many minutes after the “designated start time” that the opening kickoff or tap actually happens. Maybe the networks are loading up longer with the prognosticators to tell us what is going to happen in the game so we know what we’re going to see when we actually start watching.
 
Or, 2), injuries is a second (and very likely) possibility. I am struck repeatedly how many athletes get hurt in every game, and how long it takes to get them off the field or court when it is serious. Even if minor, the delays happen more than they did five years ago.
 
Finally, 3) is video review. Another unknown when it comes to how many minutes of video review increases the length of a game, so let’s access Mrs. Google right now and see what she says: there is no exact answer. Best guess is 3-4 minutes per NFL review, which, of course, gives advertisers more minutes to air their inanity.
 
The games aren’t getting longer. The interruptions are. Maybe that’s why cell phones become more important to distract us during the down time. Give me high school sports. They rule!