h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Did you need it? Most people have clocks on their portable devices, or else they wear wristwatches.

my dad was a dinosaur! "a locked in syndrome" and couldn't "adapt" from his erato anything "modern" ie: he was in gaslight era

What was considered modern in 1980 would be considered ancient today. Cassette tapes? Telephone books> No Internet, except very primitive verisons. No world wide web, no cell phones.

dad was THAT tightwhen mam went into town for shopping, he asked her to get him some apples (at that time, he became diabetic) and the doc's had given him a sort of food chart thing to help him
if the apples came to 99p (old brit money) and he'd given her £1, he wanted the 1p change

So, you can eat apples if you're diabetic?

dad ate all that was bad BUT his 1 apple per day was HIS answer to a diet the doc' gave him

MS is STILL suffering from the effects of an abnormal heatwave around Los Angeles plus the outcome of the wildfires in that areaSO! He still has to take personal health precautions etc.
He has asked me to pass on his thoughts and wishes to you guys and wishing you all well in health aspects etc. He'll "return" here ASAP!

We've had temperatures as high as 81 here, so we've had a bit of heat too. But it's getting into then 60s here lately.

I can "feel" what you are going through with the heat as such, years ago! Over here, our summers were about 70/80%s F.
But when I visited Los Angeles in the early 1980's, the temp' was around 85/90% and topped at 113%
Air conditioning units as such weren't needed here and even less now a days

I have an air conditioner for my bedroom, but never managed to find anyone who could set it up properly.

air conditioning here = open a bloody window

but as "our" weather heat is a "moist" type. We sweat!
Yours is a dry heat and when I was over there, I didn't sweat because it evaporated that fast. So I had to drink fluid more often

I'm not sure how you'd characterize Boston's summer temps. Usually we have high humidity, but we had a drought this year. The humidity was often low -- around 50 or 60%.

I'd have loved to "explore" America but finances and age over the years were always against me
Now I have the "word" from 3 friends I have over thereYou/MS and Dmitri

There are maybe five or six regions in the U.S., and we three are in two of them. Maybe more than six?

dunno ? I can't get a decent "map" of the American States to put on my wall in the small room where my pc is.
Only a world atlas type..
I have one that shows all the flags of all the countries

National geographic divides the U.S. into 5 regions.

? I thought it was only divided by the different number of "States" making up the "United States of America" ?

Vermont and new Hampshire are side by side, with comparable climates. Texas and Oregon have very different climates from the Northeast states. it seemed to make sense to draw up regions basedo n broad comparability of climate.

To be honest! I've never heard that before

Which came first ?

The chicken or the egg ?

See which lights a cigarette up first