Saturday, January 31, 2009

Inspiring Confidence?

Or confidence builder?

Last June, I wrote about a quirky situation right in our own subdivision. What might be called a bit of irony?

Another one appears a likely candidate. Rack this one up as another possible entrant in our Ironies circular file, if ever we will have one.

Pictured below is the humble structure of our subdivision’s homeowners association. It serves both as office, storage house, and then some. Like some spaces being rented out to enterprising homeowners selling refreshments and knick-knacks. It is quietly and unobtrusively nestled under the now wooded park, tucked neatly in one of its corners. It appears cozy, comfortable, and safe.
Now in our subdivision a pivotal if not the primary concern of the association is security – keeping residents safe, streets lighted properly, and so forth. Security guards are stationed in the active gates 24-7, or until they are closed. There are I believe three of these, and possibly two more that have been rendered unusable for vehicular traffic. One has been fenced off with a high hollow block fence and the other with a barbed wire fence in disrepair and no bridge over the gaping drainage canal of the national highway.

And indeed the association does a pretty decent job in providing security guards. Though more could be done in regulating access and egress of outsiders and their vehicles. And overall lighting needs critical upgrades.

But what gets the goat is this situation.



An office secured like a prison or a fortress? Four locking devices are visible from outside – two padlocks, a door knob, and a padlocked heavy duty deadbolt. And of course, the windows framed with heavy metal grilles.

And this is the office or clubhouse? Pray tell what valuables may be kept in there. Residents' information? Collectibles? Some table and filing cabinets?

Now does this inspire confidence among the residents that they are indeed kept safe by their sentinels? The sentinels themselves appear leery or fearful about security within the premises? or maybe simply overprotective?

Alien Alert

Lately I have been receiving electronically strange pictures with cryptic messages seeming to originate from some alien who appears to be coming from beyond our galaxy, the Milky Way.

He, she, or it appears to be using a very powerful telescope or ultra-magnifying instrument that can cut through all the miasma of interminable space and zero in on details of the earth’s surface or sub-surface, like active ugly fissures underneath our thin crust or smoldering magma flexing to burst out.

And from his lofty perch beyond our little microcosm he appears to be highly evolved and in use of technology that we can only dream about.







This morning though as I was jogging around our little park for my regular constitutional I chanced upon certain portions of the concrete road that defines the park’s boundaries and noticed certain familiarities. Like the typical concrete joints and cracks, signs of an aging roadway traversed by man and his vehicles and showing the deleterious effects of nature’s erosion on a man-made structure.

Quite a role reversal. Instead of obtrusive man trampling upon and violating the pristine offerings of nature, it is now nature acting upon the structures that man has superimposed on its works.

Anyway, it appears our overly solicitous alien with his and his instrument’s overarching capabilities focused too minutely or microscopically as to miss the forest for the trees as they say. And worse, he or his instrument may have been playing tricks on the colors of the pictures taken. Like inverting the colors?

HiHiHi.