Today is the actual 1-year anniversary of my knee replacement. I guess the warranty period is over.
In more interesting news, it’s actually raining today in Fallbrook. I can’t remember it *ever* raining in August. We have a wet monsoon coming up from the south causing this unexpected rainfall, lightning and thunder. It’s a nice surprise.
In more important news, the headline from MSNBC: “Joe Biden ended the war in Afghanistan after 20 years. That’s a BFD. ” I agree completely. Argue if you wish about how the exit was conducted, but Biden made the hard call and got the job done. We have no business trying to build democracies in the Middle East when our own is crumbling. Take your last shots at Biden over this and then let’s get on with doing something useful here at home.
Tomorrow it’s September, the transition month between summer and fall. For our KY home, that means the beginning of cooler weather, harvest time and leaves turning from green to red/brown/yellow. For our CA home, that means the beginning of hard-core fire season and Santa Ana winds. Fall in Socal is very different than Fall back east.
Hurricanes and floods. Pandemic part two (or is it part three?). Fires in CA, including close to home. Extreme heat across the US. A sad end to the endless war. The polar ice caps melting. Political corruption and incompetence. Constant evidence of man’s inhumanity to man. (Or woman. Or pick your noun/pronoun.)
It just doesn’t pay to watch the news these days. A constant diet of that and you wonder “…what’s the point of it all?”. Nihilism creeps in, when in fact there’s plenty to be happy and thankful about in the world. There needs to be a news channel that isn’t all disaster-porn.
Why *do* the news channels all focus on the worst of the world? Obviously, they do it because it sells, it makes them money, but why? What attracts the masses to a constant feed of negative news?
I’m sure one of my psychologist friends could come up with a good explanation. For now, I’m just lumping this in with my general disdain for people on average. On average or viewed in large numbers, people have very disappointing behavior. To be clear, there are plenty of people I like and respect a lot, but en masse…not so much. Homo sapiens have some very rough edges.
In just a couple of days I celebrate the first anniversary of my knee replacement. Time flies; much has happened since August 31, 2020. I thought of this because today I’m heading out to play golf, and I’m walking the 18 holes. A year ago that wasn’t possible – too much pain.
Having a pain-free knee really is life-changing. I knew I had to get the surgery when I was in KY in late spring last year and I had to turn back on a short walk with the grandkids. It became clear that I could not / did not want to be the weakest link in our family outings. I wanted to be able to keep up with the grandkids. Hence, the surgery.
Great surgeon, dedicated rehab regimen, and it all turned out well. My right knee is now the strongest part of my body. It does get stiff if I fail to stretch it for a few days, so it’s a good reminder to get up and do something, to move around. But this week I celebrate the absence of pain, gratefully.
The best part of this team – only three freshmen! We’ll finally get to see what Cal can do with an experienced team. Call me naive, but I think this could be a Final Four season.
First, a new word: “orogen”: a geology term referring to a belt of the earth’s crust involved in the formation of mountains. Also orogeny, orogenies, orogenic and orogenesis.
Second, that my eastern KY roots in the Appalachian hills are ancient. From the article: ” It’s difficult to imagine, but this range contains some of the oldest mountains in the world. Even comparisons fail; for example, the Rocky Mountain range was formed about 80 million years ago. The Appalachians? 480 million years ago.”
You can accrue a lot of ghosts and memories in 480 million years. And the Appalachians feel old – worn down and weathered. The deep hollows (hollers, for some) contain a richness of shadow and mist – they can be spooky or spiritual, depending on your mood.
For me the Appalachian hills are definitely spiritual. I feel at home there like nowhere else. Some of my earliest memories are of running through those hills and hollows, discovering plants, animals, rock formations, pools and waterfalls. That was an idyllic time in my life, and I get a little glimpse of that even now when I enter the Appalachians.
Here’s a picture from the winter of 2002 that I took not far from where I grew up. Subtle beauty.
Was just perusing the BLTN site’s statistics, and realized that I’ve written over 110,000 words here since inception in mid-2019. That’s a solid 350-400 page novel. Go figure.
Well, this was predictable. We’re just not a very smart country. We have so many things to be thankful for and to celebrate, but we piss it away being short-sighted and willfully dumb. Unreal.
Today is day 3 of a self-imposed healthy month, in which I aspire to eat better, drink zero alcohol and get some exercise. My son-in-law gave me the idea (he’s a week or two into his regimen), reinforced by the fact that I’m at an all-time low in terms of general health. It helps that I have no big events or travel scheduled for the next month – those seem to be the triggers for my most unhealthy habits.
Health and fitness – it’s certainly a journey. Just five weeks ago I walked myself into a reasonable level of cardio fitness, making it possible to walk 5-6 miles per day in the heat at Oakmont Country Club. That went well. But just five weeks later, after doing not much fitness-wise, I’ve lost that little bit of cardio health. I know it comes down to this – a (likely) shorter and unhealthier life from here on, or a (again, likely) longer and healthier life if I adopt better habits. Should be a no-brainer, but for some reason I’ve resisted choice this for years. Maybe it’s back to that willfully dumb thing.
But if I’m going to make the harder choice, there has to be something to look forward to. Here are four things I’m looking forward to:
The new Dune movie debuts 10-22-21 (in theaters and HBO Max)
After ten days on the road, finally back in dry, dry Socal. Was a good trip, and we completed enough COVID/Delta risk mitigations that I feel OK about the travel. The air here is definitely cooler and drier, a bit of a relief. I suppose nowhere is perfect – KY gets to be green and lush and CA gets to have more comfortable air. At least when it’s not burning down.
The news today is all about (a) the “terrible” job that Biden is doing in the Afghanistan withdrawl, and (b) the arcane process the House is using to pass the $3.5T relief bill and a subsequent $1T-ish infrastructure bill. With all due respect to my fiscally-conservative friends, I hope both measures pass. Conflating these two unrelated actions, I very much approve of spending our money on improving the situation here in the US rather than spending it on policing the un-policeable Middle East. The infinite war in Iraq/Afghanistan has cost trillions and I didn’t hear any fiscally conservative folks complain about that. So let’s just shift the money to build some US bridges, patch some roads, install some broadband service and generally improve things at home. Also, the infrastructure spending is unlikely to result in US soldier casualties and maiming. Nuff said.
The picture below shows how badly our mountain roads need repair.
There were lots of good memories from this trip, including:
The ATV trip up the mountain
Meals cooked and eaten together with the Alkire clan
Riding an N-guage train through the southern Rockies
Wrestling around with the grandsons
Realizing that Spalding’s glazed doughnuts are even better than I remembered
Finding good furnishings at good prices for the KY house with K
The Woodland Art Fair
Doing a good thing and visiting some folks who needed a visit – Dad, Phyllis and Mattie Moore
And after all, that’s why we travel – to collect experiences and memories.
We attended the Woodland Art Fair in Lexington yesterday, one of the best arts/crafts events of the year. It was full of art and artists, and I came away with a print by one of my favorite photographers, Dean Hill. He specializes in Eastern KY landscapes, and I purchased this view of Paintsville Lake in the spring. Gorgeous.
On the way there we made a quick stop at Spaldings. Best glazed doughnuts ever, just no contest.
The rest of the day was spent taking delivery of our first real furniture for the new KY place and installing the TV on the wall. We found some nice stuff at Redefine Design, a nice consignment shop not far from the house. Now more than one person can sit and relax. Plus we have a place to actually sit at a table for a meal. Very civilized.
I have to say, getting back to ubiquitous cell and Internet service is great after 4-5 days of being disconnected in the wilds of Colorado. Perhaps it’s good to take a break from being online, but it is…disconcerting. Online is a big part of my daily life.
No big adventures today, just minor errands and relaxing. The only event of the day is Hudson’s birthday party. Hard to believe the little guy is already four. Here he is on a hike just a couple of months ago.
After yet another late, late arrival to Louisville it’s a beautiful day. Time to look back on some of our Colorado adventures.
We stayed in a cabin at a campground near Pagosa Springs. It’s a beautiful area a long way from everywhere. About 7500 feet elevation, tons of rivers, lakes and pines. And a massive natural hot springs complex on the xxx River.
One of our adventures was an extreme all-terrain vehicle (ATV) ride into the mountains. Took us about four hours to ride up the mountain (topped out at 10,700 feet) and two hours to ride the same trail back. Gravity. It’s pretty amazing what the ATVs can push through – steep, rocky spots that you’d swear would crash you. We were on four-person vehicles, pictured below.
It *is* nice to get way off the beaten path with these vehicles, and it’s very popular in this part of the world. Everyone has an off-road vehicle of some sort. The views were spectacular, though the beetle kill of the pines above 9000 feet was sad to see. Still don’t know why the kill is at higher elevations (homework to do here), but in places it’s 80% of all trees.
It was a good day outdoors. All in, I enjoyed ATVing, but I don’t think it would become a lifestyle for me – more of a vacation outing.
At the Denver airport to catch what should have been a short, simple flight to Louisville. Except thunderstorms. We’re now going to be at least 90 minutes late on what was already a late evening flight. This is the second or third time in a row that I’ve had trouble getting to/from Louisville this summer.
This is after 3-4 days off the grid in southern CO. We had a great time, pictures and stories coming soon. But this may be the longest I’ve been without cell phone service or Internet connection in years. Weird feeling.
But here we sit with digital connections but no air travel connections. We might have been better off with the transportation featured in the picture above. It works just fine in a thunderstorm.
We’re in the southern Rocky mountains near the border of Colorado and New Mexico. Pagosa Springs. Getting here required a five hour drive from Denver, cross a few big mountain passes and lots of beautiful scenery. CO is a big place.
No pictures yet because (a) we just got here, and (b) very limited Internet service. The cabin we’re staying in shares Starlink service, the first time I’ve used that. This remote location is the very reason Starlink exists.
Today we do a 80 mile (!) ATV trail through the mountains. Watch out, Jeremiah Johnson.
This one takes in a lot of territory – I figure I’ll have to do this feature several times to show off all the better pictures. But here’s a set.
First up, Kathryn’s iPhone photo of the 2017 full eclipse. We drove two hours south to get in the path of the umbra. took us four hours to get home but it was worth it.
That was also the week that Hudson was born. Portentous. Hudson at soccer practice below.
Our spring trip to Louisville this year yielded some excellent flower photos. Here’s one from Yew Dell Gardens.
The headline picture above the title is one of the few pictures with me in it that I like. Early days with Jesse. I drove cross country for this moment.
Next, limestone cliffs, running streams, moss and greenery. That’s the essence of KY for me. It’s the exact opposite of Socal.
Oh boy. I’m getting tired of doom and gloom news, but it really *is* Friday the 13th.
This-just-in stats from Israel and the US show that the mRNA vaccines are rapidly losing effectiveness against the Delta variant. Pfizer worse than Moderna. Basically, at this date it appears that the mRNAs are 50% effective against Delta infections – not the 80% effectiveness that was assumed just a few days ago.
A newly published scientific study shows that the Lamba variant is even worse. It’s now running rampant in S America and shows enhanced ability to break through vaccination. And results in worse symptoms and outcomes.
Lots of anecdotal evidence that Delta is raging here in the US (in addition to the statistical/scientific evidence). Unlike the first 2-3 waves, this wave is touching people all around me. Just heard that a close friend is sick with COVID and stuck in a TX hotel room, quarantined alone. Another old friend in TN has a houseful of COVID breakthrough cases (four out of seven family members). And my hometown hospital in eastern KY, the largest hospital in an area the size of New Jersey, was just on the news saying their ICU is filled with Delta cases – 48 right now and growing.
That light at the end of the pandemic tunnel turned out to be a train after all. Shit.
I’m starting a new series – the Best Of, where I mine the picture library for the “best of” pictures from travels. Here’s the first, from Malta.
The title photo above is the beautiful Valetta harbor at dusk.
This is a very target-rich environment. I took a lot of great pictures in Malta. Here’s a shot of the fireworks from the St. Katarina festival in Zurrieq. What an amazing celebration week they have.
Here’s our Malta-native friend Tanya in a pensive pose in a clifftop cave.
Finally (so many to choose from), back to the Festival and the extravagant, happy celebrations in the town square.
Gonna be a brutal hot day today – at 730am it was already 80 degrees F, versus a normal temperature of 65 at this time. High humidity too, unusual for Socal.
For a week we’ve been trying to track/manage my Dad’s health problems from afar. Tough to do. Just found out he has pneumonia, not a good thing for anyone, much less someone in their mid-80s. Nice that it’s (finally) been diagnosed, but pulling him out of his downward health/strength spiral isn’t going to be easy. We can all help, but he has to be motivated.
I should take my own advice. My formula for success is a bit different than Dad’s (mine would be eat less, walk more).
Today the USGA Men’s Amateur Championship is on TV. I get to see the best amateur golfers in America take on Oakmont, my nemesis course. It’ll be fun to see great golfers struggle on the same holes that recently kicked my butt. For example, I can’t tell you how much I hate Big Mouth.
On a final cheerful note, interesting article today in Hacker News. Turns out that we’re seeing more and more occurrences of temperatures simply not tolerable/survivable by humans. any wet bulb temp above 90 degrees F is considered dangerous, and this article tracks wet bulb temps of 95 – that can take you out fast without relief. It’s interesting to me because this is part of the backstory in my still-not-finished novel, a world in which millions are forced to migrate away from their homes because they’ve become too hot for humans and animals.
I backslid on the decision to stay off social media. I got involved in another debate with anti-maskers, anti-vaxxers. In the cold light of the Delta variant surge, it seems incredible to me that people hang onto their anti-vax stand. But they do.
I had to disengage from the discussion, as one individual got pretty testy. Here’s some of what he replied to me:
“Tell me why I should have to take this jab when our President allows unvaccinated, untested and potentially infected migrants into our country and transports them throughout the country. Don’t try to shame me A**hole. Protect yourself; hunker down if you think you need to, but don’t think for a moment that you’re going to tell me/us what to do.”
Tough to reason with a person like that. So I quit trying.
My MD cousin sent me this very compelling graph from the Indiana Department of Health. That site is chock full of good data.
Even a mildly educated person can look at this graph and conclude that there are some big personal health advantages for getting vaccinated. You’re less likely to go to the hospital and less likely to die. Plus, you’re less likely to spread the disease – a win for everybody.
I know, there are people who can’t or shouldn’t get the vaccine. Kids under the age of 12 (can’t under current guidelines) and immuno-compromised folks (shouldn’t). That’s not the audience here. My frustration continues to be the willfullly ignorant.
At least this year the “you can’t tell me what to do” crowd doesn’t have the quack-cure-spouting Orange Menace to stoke their feelings. That’s something.
I should have been a travel agent. Due to several factors, I needed to change travel dates and plans for the rest of August. In one sitting I cancelled five flights and reserved five new/different ones, modified two rental car reservations, all for about the same cost and with better itineraries.
The one glitch I had was when the Alaska Airlines website kicked me out and nullified my changes because I was using their reservation system too quickly – it thought I was a bot. Their automation thought I was bad-guy automation, so it booted me. Ironic. So I had to call a human at the airline to get the changes done. I’m thinking Alaska should change their bot detection threshold.
And the rental car mods were a surprise. Each of them cost less, in one case $100 less, for a simple change in the pickup/dropoff times or dates. My original deals weren’t so good, it seems.
I’ve had some real motivation problems since returning from the last trip a couple of weeks ago. Don’t really feel like doing anything. Golf, nope. Working for pay, nope. Fixing things around the house, nope. Exercising, hell no. All I’ve managed to do is read a bunch of books and watch some Olympics on TV. Pretty sad.
There’s no obvious cause. I feel fine and have nothing to be down about. I’ve always been very self-driven toward goals and/or duty, but…something is off.
Maybe getting back on the road next week will shake me free of this malaise. So far that trip is still on, though with the Delta numbers climbing it feels a bit risky. I keep telling myself that chances of a really bad outcome for me or K is about 1 in 100,000, which is about the same as the odds of a bad outcome every time I hit the CA freeways. And I don’t worry about that.
I should probably follow this little guy’s example and get out and enjoy life.
Virus data here from San Diego, courtesy of our resident expert Eric Topol.
The effects of Delta since June are pretty obvious. And that unvaxxed case rate hasn’t peaked yet. A seven-day rolling average is a lagging indicator, so worse results are coming. Yikes.
And it’s not going to take insurance companies long to weigh in on vaccination and covered illness. Their position is they won’t cover a self-inflicted or preventable problem. They’ve hovered around this position on obesity and smoking for a long time. But with COVID there is a single direct line between the disease and the prevention (vaccination), unlike obesity which is a more general negative factor.
Sad article from Texas this morning describing the divide between those vaccinated and those not. It’s social, political, religious, economic, geographic…lots of dimensions. You would think that stats like the following quote would be convincing, but apparently not: “Of the almost 8,800 who have died in Texas because of COVID-19 since early February, only 43 were fully vaccinated.”
Integrating a lot of reading this morning, the COVID/delta variant news isn’t good. In fact it’s pretty awful. Spreads like wildfire (R naught of 9!) and is capable of breaking through your vaccine’s protection. US cases are up 8X in the last month (graph below) – we’re back up to 80,000+ new cases per day and climbing fast. Looks like delta is going to burn through the population and give us herd immunity whether we want it or not. Yay us.
The only good news is that the mortality rate from cases in the last couple of months is very low – something like 0.2%, 10x better than at the start of the pandemic. I suppose we can chalk that up to more informed/experienced care being provided in hospitals (thanks, health care workers!) and to vaccinations. That overall statistic of 0.2% combines vaxxed and unvaxxed individuals, and other sources say that 99% of admissions and deaths are currently unvaxxed. That would make my demographic’s COVID mortality rate something like 0.002%.
Sooooo….the risk of contracting COVID is now quite high again, but the risk of dying from COVID as a vaccinated person is low. Very low.
The “well, shit” part comes into play as I consider our travel plans for the rest of the year. They are…extensive. I have 18 flights booked between now and the end of the year. 18! Each one of them means time in airports and shuttles, time should-to-shoulder on the flights, and coming into contact with random people / groups on the other end of each trip. So with delta’s extreme contagion, my risk of contracting the disease seems quite high, almost a certainty.
But my risk of being sick enough to be admitted to a hospital or dying is extremely low. So while I hate the comparison, for me it’s a bit like worrying about getting the flu. If you travel a lot during the flu season you’re going to get it, but it’s almost never a life-changing event. More like a week of feeling weak and sick.
All that said, I can’t shake the feeling that it’s a terrible idea to travel so much with the delta variant burning through the population. The objective numbers say go ahead, we’ll be fine. But some part of the brain is saying “run!”. Fear of the unknown is pretty uncomfortable.
UPDATE: This Forbes article is a tiny bit encouraging. An Imperial College of London study (not yet peer reviewed) indicates that mRNA vaccines provide 50% protection from Delta, as opposed to 95% protection from the original strain. Other factoids include that the vaxxed are half as likely to contract Delta as the unvaxxed. Kind of already knew that, but it’s nice when the science makes things more clear.
UPDATE 2: From today’s NPR article, the breakthrough rate is a range between 0.01% and 0.29% – very low, just better numbers than my back-of-envelope estimates. I was close. And the bad-outcomes rate (hospitalized or dead) is less than 0.01%, or one in 10,000. Again, consistent with my earlier estimates.
I wondered when Socal was going to get its share of this summer’s heat wave, and it arrived today. We escaped any big heat in July, but today we’ve already set a new record for the date – 95 degrees. And the heat is supposed to peak the next couple of days.
Everything here is DRY, really dry. As much as I hate the thought, that means the conditions for wildfire they’ve had up north for weeks are now moving in here. It’s a worrisome time.
Let’s see…pandemic returning, wildfires on the way, threats of inflation, supply chains are still a mess, Trump still at large with money to spend…2021 has been better than 2020, but that could change.
I think the birthday season – July and August for my family – is at least as tough on the diet as the Christmas string of celebrations. Today is my youngest brother’s birthday and we’re throwing him a little party/feast. Looking forward to it, but that’s after cookouts on July 4, my birthday string of excesses, summer guests, a couple of invites to friends’ houses…let’s just say that any attempts to eat healthy during this period are futile. I know, it’s possible to have a celebratory meal without overdoing it, but that’s not how we roll. Nothing says “we love you” like a charcuterie board, good red wine and a big juicy steak. I might have a little Viking in my genes.
We (I) shouldn’t eat the way we did in our 30s, but decades-long habits are hard to break. My brother is celebrating his last birthday before the big six-O, in fact the last of all of us in his 50s. So it’s probably time (past time) to rethink how we celebrate the birthday season. End of an era and all that.
I resolve that for next year’s birthday season to do something healthy-ish on each event, rather than the Viking feast. Go kayaking or take a hike. Call it a concession to age and entropy.
All that said, Happy Birthday, Mark! One last Viking feast awaits…
UPDATE: Viking Feast complete, no casualties (well, there is the cow), and a great day was had by all. I opened a bottle of D66 Maury wine and it exceeded expectations. Dave Phinney is a genius.
