Today didn’t go as planned. In general, the last 18 hours have been rough.

Last night’s UK game was a mess – the Keystone Cats showed up, and got thumped by TX A&M. During about 10 minutes of the first half and part of the second, UK was outscored 41-10. At that point the game was over. This team is hard to understand – great one game, terrible the next.

But the real fun started when I packed up and left for the airport at 7am. I had a flight at 830am. Got close to the airport in bad morning traffic, dark and rainy, and found that I had left my phone at home. I was puzzled – I was sure I had it. But I turned around and drove home, with maybe still time to make the flight. I got home and it wasn’t there – looked everywhere. Went back out to the street and my car, used my iPad and the FindMy app, and it showed that my phone was with me. I tore the car apart, figuring it must be under a seat or something – but no phone. Then I heard it beeping – it was on the road next to my car, on Galt Ave. I must have dropped it on the road when I left. I typically shove it into my back pants pocket, and must have missed the pocket. Of course, a car – maybe multiple cars – ran over it. It works, but the screen is cracked. Brand new phone. Tried to get to the airport again, but too much 8am traffic. Turned around and went home again. I’m now rebooked on a 5pm flight today. Arrrrgh.

Between then and now I’ve been to the Apple Store, where they are fixing my phone. I was shocked to learn that their policy is to fix it when possible rather than replace it. My phone is/was functional, other than a completely shattered screen. The tech there says the circuitry will be fine, but I have my doubts. But my phone should be ready by 330pm, just barely in time for me to catch my evening flight. Gonna be a long day – it’ll be after midnight Louisville time when I arrive at the Socal house.

I’m sure there are some lessons to be learned here, but I’m not up to thinking about them at the moment. For the next couple of hours, just reading and resting before I restart the so-far-jinxed journey west.

I’m due for a little good luck. Fingers are crossed.

Weird, weird day. Last day in KY for a couple of weeks, so there’s the usual cleaning up before travel. A cool hard rain this morning, then a teasingly nice afternoon. Much warmer, with occasional sunshine. I desperately want to be out on the golf course, but it’s too wet. Hitting balls on muddy turf is no fun, no matter how much you want it to be.

Muddy turf is a problem at the house, too. Louisville Water company is busy tearing our street to bits, and has parked lots of heavy machinery, pipe and gravel on our street, right in front of the house. So I’m parking in the front yard, and now with the heavy rain, I’m ruining the lawn. Tire ruts on a previously pristine yard. Grrrr. That’s one of the big misses on this house – no driveway, no garage.

So on a can’t-do-much-outside day I’m organizing and cleaning shit around here to an OCD-worthy level. This must be a side effect of being truly retired. Before I could do a task half-assed and give myself the excuse that I don’t have the time to really do it right. And I didn’t in those days. Now…I have all the time in the world so, instead of just vacuuming the floors, I vacuum, then mop (Swiffer), then take wet paper towels and go around and look for imperfections. Then clean the tops of the baseboards – where did all that fucking dust come from? I suppose I’m available to hire for housecleaning, but my rates are way too high. Laundry, floors, doing dishes, making beds (well, bed), organizing the random shit sitting around on flat surfaces, storing the last of the Christmas decorations, making sure books are stacked 100% evenly with edges just so…it’s a bit much.

After cleaning I’m trying to relax by listening to random songs on the stereo (whatever the fucking Apple Music algorithm selects for me), reading a book that’s not as good as expected and sipping some 12-year Old Forrester – simultaneously. Multitasking. It’s mostly working, but I’d rather be walking the course and whacking balls. You can’t always get what you want, but it’s hard to know what you (I) need.

Tonight the Cats play Texas A&M and I plan to watch it over at brother Mark’s place – that should help shake me out of the deeply introspective place I’m in. There’s a rumor that JQ will play – that would be cool. No matter, just want them to win so that the FL game Saturday is mostly irrelevant. FL is a beast – you don’t want to need to beat them.

Then off to the Left Coast at O-dark-30 Wednesday. Adios.

We awake to a cold rainy day today, and to the news that the ill-conceived war on Iran – Operation Epstein Fury – is not going well. I’m not sure what i could write that hasn’t already been written/said elsewhere, but here are a few thoughts.

• MAGA and the Trump crime family corrupt everything they touch, including war. Someone made $500K on Polymarket by betting that we would bomb Iran within 24 hours. The bet was made 71 minutes before the news broke. Turns out that the Trump sons and their bros are huge Polymarket fans. Hmmm…I wonder who might have had inside information….?
• Apparently Donny Convict believed that once their religious leader was killed, Iranians would flood the streets and “take over” their country. How naive. He didn’t account for the hundreds of thousands of hard-line Royal Guard, trained to control the population – Iran’s equivalent of ICE. And for the hundreds of hard-core young men willing to become the next Supreme Leader. The Iranian population has been subjugated for years, controlled by violence. They are where WE will be in ten years if we don’t change course.
• The Pentagon’s official position is that we attacked Iran in self defense. There is ZERO evidence of that. It’s simply Dept of War propaganda, designed to deflect criticism. They’re not fooling anyone.
• Because of the chaos and uncertainty now in the Middle East, oil prices are going up fast. That means gasoline prices will follow. Get ready for 30-40% higher gas prices this summer. The anti-war, cost-cutting genius in the White House does it to us again.
• Speaking of chaos, this morning the news broke that three US jets were shot down over Kuwait by friendly fire. I hope the pilots were able to eject successfully. This is what happens when you operate on the strategy of “ready, fire……aim?”.
• Not directly related to the war, but still notable – turns out that Frank Zappa was a very perceptive, prescient man. Here’s a quote from Frank Zappa in 1991 (!!). “Now when you have a democracy, there’s always the possibility that the guy who turns out to be the biggest menace on the planet just gets voted in. And the place where it’s most likely to happen is here, due to media saturation, the illiteracy rate of the population, and the social desperation of the population.” Wow – he absolutely nailed it, 35 years ago. He left out the hate and cruelty endemic to about 30% of the US population, but that surprised us all.

Bottom line, whatever is in the Epstein Files about Trump must be really, really horrible. The incredible efforts to hide the documents, distract the public and deny, deny, deny are mind boggling. Now US service men and women are paying the price of Convict Donny’s guilt and fear.

Managed to fit in a lot of “good for the soul” activities the last two days. That’s the whole reason I travel so much.

• Watching the Cats win an away game
• Taking a grandson to gymnastics and watching him bounce around like a nut
• Walking 9 holes at Crescent Hill on a warm-ish afternoon (and hitting the ball reasonably well)
• Having the grandsons’ new tiny dog fall asleep in my lap, then falling asleep myself
• Taking care of the other grandson while he’s home with the flu
• Teaching myself how to repair/replace damaged capacitors on a vintage stereo receiver
• Having an absolutely perfect slice of NY-style pizza from Frankfort Ave
• Listening to my vintage stereo receiver(s)

Even with crummy sleep, all those good karma activities have elevated my mood quite a bit. Go figure.

Travel day today, made it from SD to SDF. Nine hours door to door, Landed in forty degree weather with a cutting wind and a grandson with a case of the flu. Ugh.

My poor street in Louisville is under attack by the water company. They’re doing *something* that requires the street in front of my house be dug up and attacked by cranes, trucks, and backhoes. It’s a war zone.

After I made it into the house, I watched UK beat South Carolina in an ugly game. It wasn’t pretty, but we walked away with a W. After the last three games, I take the ugly W.

Now I’m watching the SOTU address. I shouldn’t, because it’s basically a long speech full of lies, a staged theatrical play starring political clowns. Trump has stayed on script for the first part, but I predict he’ll soon go off script soon and say some crazy shit.

I didn’t have to wait long. He’s now attacking Minnesota and the Somali community, citing financial corruption. Every accusation is a confession. There is no one more financially corrupt, no person in the world, than Convict Donny.

The R side of the audience is getting a workout. They’re standing up every 30 seconds to applaud Dear Leader. Good for them, they probably need toe exercise.

Donny is hitting the illegal alien crime “problem” hard. Someone has told him that’s a winning issue with MAGA. He also called Venezuela “our new partner” in energy independence. Partner, huh? Partner at the end of a gun.

Last nights UK game was tragic. We played OK – not great, but moments of strong play. But the game was taken away from us by a ridiculous foul call with 14 seconds left. 14 seconds, we’re up by 3, and we lose. Just heartbreaking. This is a very tough team to watch. I’m still taking the grandsons to a game at Rupp next weekend, but games like last night take some of the joy out of it.

In politics, Convict Donny has decided to say FU to SCOTUS and double down on tariffs through a new mechanism. Does anyone even know why we’re still tariffing any country? And BTW, there’s no chance that the $175B already collected in tariffs will ever get refunded to the companies and consumers who paid it.

Homeland Security (an oxymoron if there ever was one) is shutting down TSA Pre starting this weekend, just in time for my air travel on Tuesday. Perfect. Security lines should be massive.

A man was shot and killed at Mar A Lago and it wasn’t…well, you know.

It turns out that ICE has shot and killed 3 US citizens in their lawless rampages, not just the two in Minnesota. They killed an innocent young man in Texas last month and we’re just now hearing about it. Oops.

Tennessee is going full Handmaid’s Tale. A new law proposed there would authorize the death penalty for any woman getting an abortion, for any reason. In perfect Orwellian language, the law authorizing the death penalty is called the Human Life Protection Act. Unreal.

Our tax dollars “at work”: “Trump administration officials have struggled to figure out how to increase U.S. military spending by a whopping $500 billion in their forthcoming budget, slowing the overall White House spending plan, four people familiar with the matter said.” We’re cutting spending on education, health, the EPA, but we’re gonna spend an extra half a trillion dollars on the military. Insanity.

Having noted all this, I’m gonna have to work myself out of the mood last night’s game put me in. Time for a reset.

This is sad, scary, extreme, and irritating as hell. Convict Donny’s ICE goons are making the US a place no foreigner in their right mind would visit.

This doesn’t bode well for the 2026 World Cup events in the US. I sure wouldn’t attend if I were from Europe or S America. If I were held in prison for six weeks, sleeping on a concrete floor, once I recovered I’d spend my life savings on lawyers to strike back at the bastards who took me.

In related news, US National Park attendance is down 11M visits in Convict Donny’s first year. I wonder why?

I made a small technology investment this week – I paid $200 for an annual subscription to Anthropic’s Cowork, which is their Claude Sonnet 4.6 large language model (LLM) with extensions to make it more useful as a personal assistant. I figured it was time to dive into the current state of AI a bit deeper.

So far it has already paid for itself. There’s a tax preparation step I despise, which is going through a year’s worth of multiple credit card statements and allocating expense to the various businesses I still keep running – the Louisville rental property business, the Turo car rental business, and my independent consulting LLC. That takes *hours* and multiple passes through about a hundred pages of small font pages to produce a spreadsheet report of my tax-relevant expenses. It’s really no fun.

So I loaded up all those pages of credit card statements and told Claude to scan through the data and produce a spreadsheet of expenses with categories I defined. That took the AI about 15 minutes. Then I had Claude edit the spreadsheet and allocated those summed expenses across the businesses according to some rules I gave it. Another 15 minutes. I then did a final edit of the spreadsheet by hand, and voila, 8-10 hours of work was reduced to 30 minutes. And during that 30 minutes, I could multitask and read while Claude did the work.

Claude/Cowork was built to be good at computer-centric tasks, and I can confirm that it’s very good. It generated and used Python scripts behind the scenes to accomplish certain tasks that I would have done by hand.

Next, I had Claude create a flyer for me for the N Galt Avenue Spring Fling event, something I volunteered to do as part of the event committee. I have *zero* artistic talent, so using an AI is the only way I’d ever design a flyer with graphics. That was harder for the AI – it’s not as expert at image processing as it is with number crunching. But the result wasn’t bad (shown below). I’m still working with the AI to update the flyer and improve it a bit, but once again I’m able to do something I couldn’t do by myself – hence the name Cowork, I suppose.

The image processing tasks consumed a lot more time and tokens than the financial analysis task. Honestly, I still don’t understand how the LLM platforms define and use tokens, but they’re basically units of work that comprise the basis for pricing and/or metered LLM usage. In this case the LLM had to try different approaches to image editing – some things it tried did not work. It was impressive to see the software get stuck, back up and try something different to achieve a goal. Turns out that jpegs and pdfs are tough for both humans and machines to work with. So hard that I hit the token limit for Claude/Cowork while trying to fine-tune the flyer. The token allocation resets in 5 hours, so I’ll have to wait until then to finish. As a hobbyist, not a big problem. But if this were paid consulting work…nope. I’d have to upgrade to a $100-200 per month subscription.

Breaking news as I’m writing, SCOTUS just made Convict Donny’s dumbass tariffs illegal. That’s a HUGE setback for the administration and a great thing for American consumers. Trump will lose what little mind he has left, so that should be entertaining. For the first time, he’s found a limit to his executive power. Better late than never, right?

<Insert sarcasm font> And I’m sure the government will get busy and quickly refund the hundreds of millions of $125 BILLION dollars incurred by businesses due to the illegal tariffs. That’s damage that will be very hard to undo.

Next up, someone should get the question of Donny’s ability to drop bombs on any country he chooses, for any reason, in front off SCOTUS. We’re about to go to war with Iran for no fucking reason, and Convict Donny has been silent on the whole question of “why are we going to war”. That needs to change.

This particular Trump team atrocity drives me nuts. For years all we heard was that Republicans were fiscally responsible, screaming about deficits and the national debt. And pinning their own excesses on the next Democratic administration.

But this…this is just horrific. Kristi Dogkiller Noem, one of Trump’s all-time-worst appointees (and that’s saying a lot), is fleecing the American taxpayer to the tune of $70M+ so she can fly around the world in luxury, on a private 737. It’s insane. Why should taxpayers foot the bill for this shitty excuse for a human to fly around like a sheik?

The absolute gall of these people. They say this will save taxpayers money because it’s cheaper than a military jet. What a fucking joke…but unfortunately, the joke is on us.

The next time one of your MAGA friends opines on fiscal responsibility and/or the national debt, ask them to justify a corrupt cosplaying Cabinet appointee getting to buy multiple private jets for her personal, royal use, using *our* money. How does that serve the taxpayers?

It’s Fat Tuesday, a Mardi Gras milestone day. The end of Carnival and another excuse for a big party in NOLA. Here in Socal it’s just the calm after and before the storm. Lotsa rain yesterday, and now a cold clear morning before the next round tonight.

It’s also game day for UK v Georgia, yet another must-win game for the Cats. It’s a 9pm EST game, so I’m happy to be on the Left Coast to see it at a decent hour. GO BIG BLUE!

Since returning from Cabo I’ve been *busy*. With K still under the weather, I’ve been shopping, cleaning, doing laundry, being a travel agent, stocking up on firewood, working in the olive grove, and so on. I did manage to get a round of golf in before the storms. I’m surprised at how much I enjoy golf these days – it’s about the only athletic-ish thing I do anymore, so it feels great when I get out and play. I’m real close to playing the best golf of my life – there are a few things I’m changing in the swing and I think they’re gonna work. It would be weird but OK to be a better golfer at 70 than I was at 30 or 40.

I could write pages about this week’s new outrages from Donny Convict’s Crime Family, but it’s depressing and I prefer not to today. The horrors of ICE, the Trump-Epstein files, the financial graft and corruption of everyone in Trump’s orbit, the destruction of the US’s health care system, the constant stream of lies told by the federal government…it’s a lot to take in. The (s)hits just keep on coming.

I get back to KY in a week, and I’m anxious to see family and friends there. It will have been 5 weeks since seeing the grandsons, and that’s a bit too long. Looks like the nasty winter is mostly over there, so that’s another plus.

As if I didn’t have enough to do, I just ordered a dashcam to install in my Socal vehicle. After a run-in with a reckless driver in Louisville, I decided a dashcam is necessary for self-preservation given today’s rude and dangerous drivers. And given ICE, come to think of it. I’ll install one here in CA as a test case, then do the same on the KY vehicle.

Marco Rubio gives Europe the message that the US is no longer a democracy, no longer a beacon to the world. We’re a white Christian nationalist autocracy-in-the-making, full stop. Extended quote from Heather Cox Richardson:

In his speech to the conference yesterday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was less confrontational than Vance was last year, but the message was the same. He attacked all three of the pillars on which the U.S. has previously stood in foreign affairs. Global trade has ruined the U.S. economy, he said, while international institutions have undermined sovereignty, and “a climate cult” has imposed energy policies that are “impoverishing our people.”

He focused, though, on “mass migration,” which he claimed “threatens the cohesion of our societies, the continuity of our culture, and the future of our people.” He called for Europe to join with the U.S. in rejecting the tenets of the post–World War II vision, claiming that “[w]e are part of one civilization—Western civilization. We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir.”

His description of that shared heritage reflected the Trump administration’s fantasy past. It was all white and Christian, quite weirdly erasing the Indigenous Americans who were central to the development of a peculiarly “American” identity in the eastern colonies of North America and the reality that the vast majority of the American West was Indigenous, Spanish, and Mexican for hundreds of years before it became part of the United States in 1848.

Rubio’s version of the U.S. did not include Black Americans at all, even though they were among the first inhabitants of the colonies that became the U.S., and even though he called out the Rolling Stones, who built their body of work on that of Black American blues musicians like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, as part of “western civilization.” Rubio even ignored his own family’s arrival in the U.S. from Cuba in 1956, rooting his own heritage not in the modern migration from Latin America to the U.S. that the administration is criminalizing, but in eighteenth-century Spain.

Entirely ignoring the threat of autocratic Russia against Europe, Rubio pushed Europe to abandon the values of democracy in favor of imperialism. He said the U.S. had “no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline” and urged Europe to work with the U.S. for a return to western “dominance.”

I despise everything about Donny Convict’s administration. This is just one more example. We may never recover from the damage done by this gang of thugs – certainly not in my lifetime.

This may be the most depressing, disgusting story I’ve read in years. We’ve definitely failed our children.

Friday the 13th is showing its teeth today. I’ve spent the morning rescheduling our flights and shuttle rides to get us home a day earlier than planned. We now arrive Saturday, and the only question is which Kaiser facility we head for when we hit the OC airport- an ER, an urgent care clinic or the usual med clinic without an appointment. K’s sickness isn’t getting any better, even after a visit to the resort MD here and some antibiotics. Time to get moving toward CA. Being sick while traveling is no bueno, even more so when outside the US.

And with all the down time (not doing much except trying to get her feeling better and making travel changes), I’ve had plenty of time to read the news. Ugh. Convict Donny and his pack of flying monkeys continue to find new things to ruin or destroy. The EPA and air quality regulations. The economy. Upcoming elections. The rule of law. Our international reputation. They’re all taking damage, daily.

It’s really weird watching a country self-destruct. The barbarians aren’t just at the gate, they’re inside the building, burning it down a room at a time.

The only good news that Friday the 13th has brought is this beautiful addition to our horse syndicate, born a day or two ago. No name yet, but he and mom are healthy. Can’t wait to wander out to Hermitage Farm and see them.

I’m not one to buy into conspiracy theories, but there’s one that I increasingly believe. The biggest story in history is staring us right in the face, and no one is talking about it. There’s a very good chance that our President, Donald J. Trump (aka Donny Convict), is a Russian asset. The Manchurian Candidate President.

Think about it. If true, no story is bigger. America has been captured without a shot fired. Wikipedia has a great summary of why this may be true, and when there’s this much smoke, fire is the simplest explanation. Here’s my off the cuff list of why I think it’s so.

The trip he took to Russia in the 1980s:

In February 2025, The Hill reported on three cases where claims were made by ex-KGB officials that Trump had been cultivated, recruited (with the codename “Krasnov”^[a]) in 1987, and/or compromised. The aforementioned claims by Shvets, which were also a significant basis for Craig Unger‘s best-selling book, American Kompromat: How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery, were also backed by Alnur Mussayev, former head of Kazakhstan’s intelligence service, and Sergei Zhyrnov, an ex-KGB officer living in France.^[26] Mussayev also asserted that Trump is compromised: I have no doubt that Russia has kompromat on the US President, that over the course of many years the Kremlin has been promoting Trump to the post of President of the main world power.^[21]

The Florida estate that Trump bought for $40M and quickly/mysteriously sold to a Russian for $95M, at the precise time when Trump needed cash and couldn’t get it from banks. Also just days before the 2008 real estate crash.

The many, many times Trump has sided with Vladimir Putin and Russia on international issues.

The time he took two Russian spies into the Oval Office, allowing no one else inside to hear what was said.

The million plus times (!!) Trump is mentioned in the Epstein files, alongside the increasing evidence that the whole Epstein human trafficking process was co-designed by Russian intelligence to produce kompromat to be used against world leaders.

Trump’s unwavering alliance with Russia against Ukraine.

Trump’s methodical undermining of NATO, the only effective deterrent to Russia’s aggressions in Europe.

Trump’s longstanding relationship with Paul Manafort, someone deeply embedded inside Russian oligarchs’ business interests.

Trump’s many ties to individuals deeply involved in Russia business and politics – Paul Manafort, Michale Flynn, Jared Kushner, Jeff Sessions, Rex Tillerson, Roger Stone, Michael Cohen, Erik Prince….the list goes on and on.

It would explain why Trump is busily dismantling our democracy, destroying institutions and trust. Why he’s making enemies of Europe. Why he’s such a divisive force in America – he’s trying to tear it (us) down. He’s a Putin puppet, and has been all along.

First night’s sunset in Cabo. Not too shabby. Taken with the new iPhone 17 Pro Max.

After a long travel day, we saw plenty of whales and I downed some ice cold Herra Durra Blanco. Therapeutic.

UPDATE

Down day today, just whale watching and porch sitting. Trying to rest up for a big day tomorrow – leaving on a fishing excursion at 7am. Have no idea how the fishing will be. The weather is…atypical. I feel qualified to say that after coming down here on this week for 20+ years. Rough seas, cloudy skies, a hard easterly current offshore…this is unusual. So again, I have no idea what fishing will be like. I could have walked over to the docks at noon-ish to see what the morning boats were bringing in, but…lazy.

Part of the down day is a little Internet surfing. I’m dropping in on the Lexington Fasig-Tipton Winter Mixed Sale, where our syndicate is shopping for yet another broodmare. It’s surreal, watching a KY auction in real time as we sit on the Cabo coast 3000-ish miles away.

We took a long walk on the beach as our minor exercise today. Walking on these beaches is strenuous – you sink in easily through the coarse granite sand and you have to expend considerable energy to move forward. It’s also a free pedicure.

The other big activity of the day is reading. I just finished Maximum Light by Nancy Kress, a superb story about ecological damage gone extreme. The core idea is the same as my short story Intervention – human birth rates drop to near zero, but for very different reasons. In Kress’s book, it’s because of ecological damage resulting in human genome error. In mine it’s because aliens watch what we do to the Earth/ecology and decide to punish us. I wonder if my short story was subconsciously influenced by Kress’s book, which I think I read years ago. In any event, her book is excellent. Recommended.

Now I’m on to a classic Peter Hamilton space opera, Fallen Dragon. I love Hamilton’s books, and they’re classic world building novels. Everything my writers’ group hates about world building, Hamilton does. He influences my writing – my default mode is to explain the world I’m writing about by telling, not showing. That’s anathema to a lot of writers. But I love it, so fuck ’em. My novel Lost Hope was first written with extreme backstory and world building, and my writers’ group convinced me to rewrite it as first person present with little or no telling. That’s where I got lost. I may or may not get back into it, but I kind of understand why I’m stuck. Days like today where I have hours to sit and think make me want to get back into serious everyday writing. We’ll see.

Tomorrow, fishing. Hope we catch something edible for the rest of the week.

What a game last night! That was one for the ages. I sure wish I could have been there.

Mark Pope’s post-game presser with his 1996 National Champ team mates was a real treat. Happy for him.

Dook lost, Vandy lost, and we beat Tennessee again. Perfect day.

This team, though…they’ve turned out to be tough. Slow starters and dramatic, but tough. Kardiac Kids, for sure.

Big day today. It’s gameday for UK v TN, UK at home in another high-stakes SEC slugfest. I sure hope we don’t have to hear Rockytop after this one. And I sure hope Doug Shows isn’t one of the refs.

And it’s the day before we leave for Cabo. Last minute packing to do. This will be our first flight using the new Southwest boarding process with assigned seats, so that’ll be interesting.

And…it’s the day I finished the incredibly tough iPhone switch. Yesterday we went to the T-Mobile store to give them lots of money in exchange for two shiny tech bricks. That turned out to be very, very hard. We spent 3 hours at the store as the techs there fumbled through the account/plan and device changes. I can’t tell you how many times I heard “we have a new system, and it’s much harder to use”. We managed to get K’s device switched and the data transferred, but my phone simply would not allow us to copy its data onto the new one. We tried several methods, but….nope. So we took my old phone and the new one home, where I worked on a manual process of transferring all the data, apps, and settings from iPhone 14 to iPhone 17.

I spent most of the evening and another hour or two early this morning, but I’m finished. The 14 is now clean and reset to factory, and the 17 is working fine. But what a slog – I’ll think twice before the next switch, hopefully in 3 years or longer. Every step of the process was difficult and slow. It’s amazing how much of life is now packaged up in one’s phones, apps, data and passwords.

I’ve decided it’s time to upgrade mobile phones, and holy shit the shopping/comparison experience is tough. The mobile service providers have made it *very* complicated to decide what one should do. Lots of confusing, dense information to sort through.

We’re both currently on T-Mobile 55+ plans, using an iPhone 14 Pro and an iPhone 14. With the advent of the iPhone 17 series, the new features – mostly better battery life, standardized USB C charging cables, and better cameras – are compelling. K’s iPhone 14 won’t hold a charge for more than a few hours, so that’s now a big problem.

Both Mint Mobile and Spectrum offer deeply discounted monthly rates but limited value on new phone purchases or trade-ins. For example, Mint offers a $15/month rate (for a year), but will only give me $200 trade-in toward an iPhone 17 Pro. T-Mobile, if I stick with my $60/month rate, will give me $900 in trade-in toward the upgraded iPhone. So comparing the two, my 12-month cost for T-Mobile would be $60×12 = $720, plus $200 (the difference between trade-in allowance and the $1100 price of the iPhone 17). So, $920.

The Mint Mobile 12-month cost would be $15×12 = $180, plus $900 (the difference between trade-in allowance of $200 and the $1100 price of the iPhone 17, again). So, $1080.

I looked at Boost Mobile – they have great monthly rates ($25/month), but offer no trade-in deals. So their 12-month cost would be $900 (for a new phone bought through Boost) plus $25×12 = $300 + $900 = $1200. I have a feeling that if I do the same analysis for other providers, I’ll end up in the same price range. Funny how that works.

Plus, if switching to another carrier, I have to consider things like international charges, data charges, call coverage (Fallbrook has had some very spotty coverage in the past – your mileage varies a lot in our rural area), customer service…etc. So the simplest/safest is to stay with the devil we know.

You would think there’d be a strong incentive for a carrier to encourage existing customers to stay, but I can’t really find one. T-Mobile’s superior trade-in value is great, but it’s available to anyone – not just existing customers. This is a mostly mature market, so there’s just not much difference among the competitors.

I understand the technical details of mobile phone service and devices due to my engineering background and decades of providing/buying phone service for employees of my companies, so while the current offerings are dense/complex, all I have to do is absorb the financial details and the conclusions are pretty obvious. But I can’t imagine someone with no technical background trying to grok this. What is 5G and why should I care? Is 5GB enough data per month (and what is a GB)? Is 128GB enough local storage on the phone? They’ve made it tough.

The path of least resistance is to wander over to the T-Mobile store and do the deal in person, both phones at once, and get the phones’ data transferred right there. Apple has made that pretty easy. New phone cameras for the Cabo trip seems like a good idea, and certainly for the Ireland-Scotland trip coming up in late May. Time to bite the bullet.

Everyone getting ready to vote this year should watch this short video. We must vote the criminals out of office and then begin the process of bringing ICE to heel. They are an abomination.

It’s January 31st, ending the wildest/worst news month in memory. Convict Donny and his gang of disease-ridden flying monkeys have worked very, very hard in the past month to tear down American democracy and reputation. They’ve made a lot of progress.

Kentucky basketball has been on a roller coaster, mostly negative Gs, and today we get another gut check against Coach Cal and Arkansas. Cal has found new motivation and a home in Arky, so we’re a big underdog. You never know what you’re going to get from the 2026 Wildcats, so I’ll tune in with no expectations.

It’s perfect weather here in Socal – 80 degrees and sunny – while most of the country is in the freezer. That’s a big part of what brought me here the first time, back in the early 1980s. I remember a fateful February day, digging my car out of the snow in 10 degree weather, fighting my way to the airport in Cleveland, then landing in 80+ degree sunny weather in San Diego. I was flabbergasted. It had never occurred to me that a full-on climate change was possible with only a plane flight. At that moment I knew I was going to to live here.

Tomorrow brings in a perfect month. I just heard the term, meaning a month (always a February, never a Leap Year) in which all the days of the month line up in a perfect little 7×4 rectangle. It happens every ten years or so. Maybe the numerology of a perfect month will do something to counter the evil intent of Convict Donny’s gang. That would be nice. I’m spending most of the perfect month in Socal and Cabo – warm, peaceful places, as long as you stay off the freeways and out of town. That’s the plan. By the time I make my way back to KY, the deep freeze should be over and I’ll get to enjoy some time with the grandsons without risking frozen fingers and toes.

Though I am looking forward to Cabo. K and I have been going there for 20+ years and we have it down to a science. We know what’s good about the place and what to avoid/ignore. A week spent watching whales from our back porch and sipping good tequila. One long day fishing offshore. A couple of good meals out, with restaurants that carry wines from Casa Madero, the oldest winery in the Americas (1597!) and one of the best. Some exercise each day in the resort’s well-furnished gym. Epic sunsets. Last year’s whale watching was superb, so it’ll be interesting to see if this year’s migration in and out of the Sea of Cortez is as active as 2025’s.

We’ll also make a trip to the desert late this month (or in mid-March), as we expect a superbloom this year. Lots of winter rain hit the Anza Borrego desert, and when that happens, the desert comes alive for a few weeks. Here’s a shot of a blooming Borrego from 2017 (with an iPhone 6!).

I did a little research this morning and confirmed something I’ve suspected for a while. There’s a clear correlation between my travel and getting sick. Over the last 3-4 years, about 2/3 of the time I return from a trip or long flight(s), I get sick. Sometimes a cold, sometimes a flu, a couple of times Covid. Yikes.

That’s a huge downside to the travel life I’ve adopted. I’m not sure what, if anything, I can do to avoid it. Maybe adopt some extreme hygiene on travel days? Tons of hand sanitizer, some immune system boosters, and carry/wear a mask if I find myself in the vicinity of someone coughing and sneezing (I think masks do more to protect others from catching my germs, but, they *might* help as a line of defense against airborne crud).

One more reason I need to win a lottery and start flying via private jet.

I feel quite a bit better today – not 100%, but around 80%. But I’ve already lost 3 days to this latest post-travel illness. Grrrr.

My mood may be affected by the fact that I’m still sick, still losing valuable days to a bug caught on the cruise. No good deed goes unpunished. But things *do* seem pretty grim.

Kentucky basketball isn’t what it should be. With a massive NIL fund to pay the players, we should be a top-tier team. We’re not. On any given night (like last night), we’re capable of getting massacred by a solid team. It’s not clear why, so it’s not clear what the fix might be, so it’s maddening. No joy in Mudville.

The war zone in Minneapolis is so discouraging, so hard to watch our government terrorize citizens for…nothing, The cruelty is always the point with MAGA. Story after story of ICE/CBP agents breaking laws and roughing up or killing citizens. It’s a nightmare, a literal civil war. And now it’s coming to Philadelphia (or any other random blue state/city).

With all the attention on the people killed in MN, there’s still a giant list of atrocities being committed by Convict Donny and team every day. Dozens and dozens of things we didn’t vote for and will make life worse for most Americans. Insane foreign and economic policy. A war with Venezuela. Vaccine deniers taking over federal healthcare. Important regulations being gutted. Voting rights under constant attack. You can’t keep track of it all, which I’m sure is the strategy. Steve Bannon used the term “flood the zone with shit” so that we’re overwhelmed and can’t respond effectively. Well, it’s working.

There’s soooo much to do at the Socal house, so much work that’s just piling up because I can’t get to it. Big house, big property, now 50-ish years old, so there’s a lot of maintenance required. I’ve gotten pretty good at scheduling that maintenance, building it into my weekly calendar, but that’s all now irrelevant because I can’t do the work at the moment. Sore throat, congested, no energy – just walking up and down our hill does me in.

So yeah, 1/28/26 isn’t turning out to be a happy time. Some of that will change soon, and some won’t. Meanwhile, I’ll do the only thing I can and read a good book or two.

I almost made it. Thought I had escaped cleanly from the cruise with no residual damage, but nope.

We made a clean and fast exit from the ship two days ago. Down the gangway in minutes and walked to a short taxi line. $25 later, we were deposited at Ft Lauderdale airport where the security lines were surprisingly short. Great so far.

Our flight to San Diego via Denver was delayed about an hour, but not cancelled. We left FL feeling lucky. Exit row seats and everything. A nice just under four hour flight landed us at the North Pole in Denver.

UPDATE – the power just went out at the house, 630am. The generator kicked in within 2-3 seconds, and stayed running for 10 minutes, until utility power returned. Worked perfectly – I love our Generac. Anyway, back to Denver.

Denver was intense. Runways covered with swirling powdery snow, ice hanging from parked planes. About 15 degrees and windy outside. We only had 30 minutes until our next flight, so we ran from gate to gate with all our luggage. That was fun. We made the flight and took our seats, then waited to be de-iced by the line of trucks along the runways.

I was pretty sure we weren’t going to get to take off – conditions were harsh. But we made it, and I settled in for the relatively short 2 hour flight.

Made it home by 9pm, an 18 hour travel day from ship to home. A celebratory splash of Willet Rye, then a well-deserved bedtime. A long but successful day.

Then I woke up the next morning, Monday, with a massive sore throat. Uh oh. I managed to get some things done, but by the afternoon I was feeling awful. So much for a clean escape. Some kind of virus had tagged along for the ride, and now decided to show me who’s really the boss in travel situations.

A long afternoon yesterday curled up on a couch, mostly non-functional. At least today I feel stronger and have few doubts that this is a cold, not flu or Covid – no fever, no body aches, just congestion, sore throat and some serious fatigue.

This is one of the hidden costs of a travel lifestyle. You lose days every so often with the illnesses you pick up in crowds. It’s frustrating, but at least I have confidence that the new leadership of the CDC and HHS will lead the way to a cure for the common cold. Right.

What a day. UK wins another close one, and I had to watch via my phone again. I suppose I would watch all of them on my phone if it means they win. The officiating was horrific – pretty sure there was some betting thing going on, because the calls against UK in our own house were inexplicable. But we won.

I also managed to get checked in to tomorrow’s SW flight using the ship’s shitty wifi, no small feat.

But the big news of the day is the second stone cold execution of a US citizen by ICE in Minneapolis. I’ve see the videos, including frame-by-frame, and it was simply an execution. We’re now in a full fledged civil war with MN as the front line.

I hope everyone now understands that no one is safe, your legal carry permit means nothing to the ICE goons, your 1st and 4th Amendment rights mean nothing to the Trump regime. Regular people are being labelled as terrorists and killed by the masked thugs called ICE.

The ONLY good that can come out of all this is that the rest of the US wakes up and does whatever it takes to right the ship. Vote. Publish. Protest. Speak out. Fight if you must, and we may be forced into that.

UPDATE

After watching more news about Minneapolis, I’m really upset. Nauseated. How can it have come to this? The rapid escalation of violence and lawlessness since Jan 1 is stunning. Watch the movies Civil War and Anniversary and you’ll see where this is heading. Life needs to stop imitating art. Sadly, it’s time to make sure you can defend your home, because they’re coming for us all before it’s over.

Here, on a ship in the Caribbean, there’s nothing I can do but stew and rant. But when I hit land, time to make some plans. Instead of spending time on corporate boards, I think it’s time to get all my like-minded friends, families and neighbors organized, informed and moving. Create an organization or join an organization, I’m not sure which is better. But I’m jumping in one way or the other.