Gated Communities...

...are a bane of the existence of delivery drivers.

Not necessarily those with a nice guard at the front, who will see the flowers, or pizza, or whatever in your vehicle and your delivery manifest and wave you through.

No, it's those with no guard, and you have to call and have people give you a code or use their remote that controls the gate or whatever.

Half the time, no one is home.  The other half, they are letting all numbers they don't know that register on the caller ID go to voice mail.

Either way, it's hard to get anything through.

So when i read about the plans of condo developer Larry Hall, i wasn't sure what to think.

He is building the "ultimate" gated community.  He has bought a Cold War era abandoned missile silo, and is building 7 floors of apartments that will sell for $1-2M each.  The other 7 floors of the structure will store food, indoor water filters and tanks, and be an indoor farm that can grow vegetables and raise fish in the ponds.


He expects it to sell out, and then he can buy 3 more silos and do the same.


His plan leaves me with questions.


One is, how will the owners, who presumably are wealthy enough to own lots of other stuff and live elsewhere, get to these emergency apartments when an emergency, like social collapse or nuclear war, start?  After all, once things start going downhill, it may be too late to get there, but who wants to run over to a missile silo near Salina, Kansas, every time the media get their panties in a wad?


Also, do i really want to be able to live through one of those dire emergencies, and then have to be a pioneer who helps reestablish society, carving it out of a new wilderness built in the jungles of the old one's rubble?  No, really i probably don't.  While i'm not as unadventurous as my mother, who thinks roughing it is a hotel with no room service, i have to admit this wouldn't be my cup of tea.


Finally, do i want to live in a world with no internet, and no pizza or flower delivery?  Probably not.

Today is

Birth Mother's Day -- the day before Mother's Day, for all the women who have made an adoption plan for their babies

Day of Purification of All Things -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Fairy Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Humans Disbanded -- Fairy Calendar (and don't ask how we blew it)

Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Day

Fibromyalgia Awareness Day

International Migratory Bird Day -- original date second Saturday in May, but the IMBD organization encourages you to celebrate when birds are migrating in your area

International Nurses Day

Jamestown Day -- Jamestown, Williamsburg, VA, US (special demonstrations and programs for the anniversary of the founding of Jamestown, America's first permanent English colony)

Letter Carriers "Stamp Out Hunger" Food Drive -- US

Limerick Day -- birth anniversary of Edward Lear

Mother Ocean Day -- celebrate the wonders of the ocean, wherever you happen to be

National Babysitter's Day -- US, giving recognition to the babysitters who make your date nights possible

National Miniature Golf Day

National Nutty Fudge Day

National Train Day -- US

National Windmill Day -- Netherlands

Odometer Day -- actually first called a "roadometer", it measured wagon wheel revolutions, as 360 of them made a mile, and was invented and first used this day by William Clayton, Orson Pratt, and Appleton Milo Harmon, Mormon pioneers traveling to Utah in 1847

Olde May Day (Julian Calendar)

Randwick Wap Cheese Rolling -- Randwick, Gloucestershire, England (Yes, they roll cheeses that were blessed last Sunday around the church and give the Mayor a good dunking in the pond; yes, they've been doing it for 700 years; no, no one is quite certain why, though many stories are told of the origin.)

Rotuma Day -- Fiji

Saint Andrew the First Called Day -- Georgia

Snellman Day -- Finland

Stay Up All Night Night -- because George Mahood thinks everyone should, at least once a year

St. Diomma of Kildimo's Day (Patron of Kildimo, County Limerick, Ireland)

St. Francis Patrizi's Day (Patron of reconciliations)

St. Pancras' Day (2nd Ice Saint; Patron of children, oaths, treaties)

World Fair Trade Day -- sponsored by the World Fair Trade Organization



Anniversaries Today:

Richard I (Lionheart) of England marries Berengaria of Navarre, 1191
Jagiellonian University is fouded in Krakow, Poland (oldest in Poland), 1364
National University of San Marcos is founded in Lima, Peru (oldest in the Americas), 1551
Maria Theresa of Austria is crowned Queen of Bohemia, 1743
Coronation of George VI, 1937


Birthdays Today:

Jason Biggs, 1978
Kim Fields, 1969
Tony Hawk, 1968
Stephen Baldwin, 1966
Emilio Estevez, 1962
Ving Rhames, 1961
Steve Winwood, 1948
George Carlin, 1937
Tom Snyder, 1936
Burt Bacharach, 1929
Yogi Berra, 1925
Mary Kay Ash, 1918
Katharine Hepburn, 1907
Florence Nightingale, 1820


Today in History:

Antipope  Nicholas V, a claimant to the papacy, is consecrated in Rome, 1328
Rao Jodha, a Rajput chief  of to the Rathore clan, founds Jodhpur, India, 1459
Philip Lenzi places the first ice cream advertisement, in the NY Gazette, 1777
Society of St Tammany is formed by Revolutionary War soldiers; it later becomes an infamous group of NYC political bosses, 1789
The Manitoba Act is given the Royal Assent, paving the way for Manitoba to become a province of Canada on July 15, 1870
Tunisia  becomes a French protectorate, 1881
In the North-West Rebellion, the four-day Battle of Batoche, pitting rebel Métis against the Canadian  government, comes to an end with a decisive rebel defeat, 1885
Ten weeks after his abduction, the infant son of Charles Lindbergh is found dead in Hopewell, New Jersey, 1932
Konrad Zuse presents the Z3, the world's first working programmable, fully automatic computer, in Berlin, 1941
A formal North American Aerospace Defense Command agreement is signed between the United States and Canada, 1958
West Germany and Israel establish diplomatic relations, 1965
The U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez seized by Cambodian forces in international waters, 1975
South Africa prisoner Nelson Mandela sees his wife for 1st time in 22 years, 1984
Amy Eilberg is ordained in New York as 1st woman Conservative rabbi, 1985
Fred Markham of the US becomes the first person to pedal a bike at 65mph unaided by wind, 1986
Ingrid Baeyens becomes the first Belgian woman to ascend Mount Everest, 1992
Russia and Chechnya sign a peace agreement after 400 years of conflict, 1997
The Texas, US, legislature is brought to a standstill when 59 Democratic lawmakers go into hiding in a dispute with Republicans over redistricting, 2003
An 8.0 earthquake in southwest China kills more than 69,000 people, 2008
Queen Elizabeth II becomes the second-longest-reigning monarch in British history, 2011