Back to the Left Coast today, just in time for a Biblical heat wave. Bad timing, kind of normal for me.

Next week we’re off to Alaska for what should be a relaxing cruise. I plan to spend the time becoming the only person in history to lose weight on a cruise ship. I *do* enjoy walking round and round the ship, watching the scenery go by.

By the time I get back to KY, Fall will have begun if not in full swing. I hope for some colorful leaves and a successful UK football season. And of course it’s only 2 months and two weeks until the first official UK hoops game. So there’s a lot to look forward to.

With Dad now respectfully buried, I think it’s now OK to note that I share John Prine’s sentiments about burial.

Woke up this morning
Put on my slippers
Walked in the kitchen and died
And oh what a feeling!
When my soul
Went thru the ceiling
And on up into heaven I did ride
When I got there they did say
John, it happened this way
You slipped upon the floor
And hit your head
And all the angels say
Just before you passed away
These were the very last words
That you said:

Chorus:
Please don’t bury me
Down in that cold cold ground
No, I’d druther have “em” cut me up
And pass me all around
Throw my brain in a hurricane
And the blind can have my eyes
And the deaf can take both of my ears
If they don’t mind the size
Give my stomach to Milwaukee
If they run out of beer
Put my socks in a cedar box
Just get “em” out of here
Venus de Milo can have my arms
Look out! I’ve got your nose
Sell my heart to the junkman
And give my love to Rose

Repeat Chorus

Give my feet to the footloose
Careless, fancy free
Give my knees to the needy
Don’t pull that stuff on me
Hand me down my walking cane
It’s a sin to tell a lie
Send my mouth way down south
And kiss my ass goodbye

Repeat Chorus

John Prine, Please Don’t Bury Me, from the Sweet Revenge album, 1973

I do love me some JP.

What a weekend…visitation and funeral services for Dad, a few big family meals, long drives to and from Ashland, sleepless nights, too-tight clothes and hot humid days. I’m exhausted, but satisfied that we did everything we could (and should) to honor Dad and that it all went well. I was a little worried about delivering the eulogy at the funeral, but even that went well. I think Dad would have been proud of all of us.

Meanwhile, all kinds of things happened in the world. NASA’s Artemis launch got postponed. Rory McIlroy (one of the good guys in golf) won the big prize at the end of the golf season. And these guys went to their first day of school for the 2022 year.

Life goes on. Experiencing a funeral of a close friend or family member just underscores how important it is that we enjoy that life while we have it. I plan to do that just as soon as I get some rest.

Here we are, in eastern KY again. Been here more this year than in many years. Today we get to gather together in a funeral home “lounge” and greet however else comes by to pay respects to Dad and his family. I’m sure I’ll see quite a few folks who I will never see again.

The highlight, such as it is, of the last few days was putting picture collages together with my daughter. Pictures of Dad’s family ranged back to 1900, so it was quite a journey through time. The collages turned out well, and that should give the visitors and family something to look at while they wait to shake a hand or two.

Dad’s generation held these somber, quiet “visitation” events in addition to a religion-led funeral. We’re honoring that tradition today and tomorrow. I, on the other hand, plan to request a noisy, raucous wake with food and rock music. And maybe a memorial golf outing. I hope people have good memories of me, but even if they don’t we can show them a good time.

The student loan forgiveness thing is a divisive topic. My take is that the whole student loan system was a hot mess, and anything that can be done to help students is a good thing. There’s a lot of hypocrisy from folks who are outraged that some students get debts forgiven and others don’t. From Heather Cox Richardson’s blog today:

First, after a day of Republican congress members railing against yesterday’s educational loan forgiveness of up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients and $10,000 for others, the White House tweeted a thread of those members alongside the amount of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) money those individuals were forgiven. 

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) said: “For our government just to say ok your debt is completely forgiven.. it’s completely unfair.” Greene had $183,504 in PPP loans forgiven.

Representative Vern Buchanan (R-FL) said: “Biden’s reckless, unilateral student loan giveaway is unfair to the 87 percent of Americans without student loan debt and those who played by the rules.” Buchanan had more than $2.3 million in PPP loans forgiven.

Representative Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) said: “We do not need farmers and ranchers, small business owners, and teachers in Oklahoma paying the debts of Ivy League lawyers and doctors across the U.S.” Mullin had more than $1.4 million in PPP loans forgiven.

Representative Kevin Hern (R-OK) said: “To recap, in the last two weeks, the ‘Party of the People’ has supercharged the IRS to go after working-class Americans, raised their taxes, and forced them to pay for other people’s college degrees.” Hern had more than $1 million in PPP loans forgiven.

Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) said: “Asking plumbers and carpenters to pay off the loans of Wall Street advisors and lawyers isn’t just unfair. It’s also bad policy.” Kelly had $987,237 in PPP loans forgiven.

Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said: Everyone knows that in a $60 Billion+ European land war, it’s always the last $3 Billion that kicks in the door….” Gaetz had $482,321 in PPP loans forgiven. 

From Letters From an American

So it’s OK for Congresscritters to get loans, big loans, from the Gubmint and have them forgiven. But heaven help us when students catch a small break.

That little lesson in hypocrisy is about all the energy I have for today. I plan a day of rest, getting ready for a difficult weekend.

Well, this is discouraging. How in the world does someone smart enough and lucky enough to become a billionaire decide to donate most of it to a far, far right-wing organization dedicated to sending the US back to the 1880s? $1.6 billion to the Federalist Society? The Federalist Society has always been a keystone of the conservative movement’s long game, a strategic force. With this kind of backing, they can wreak havoc for another 50 years. Sigh.

***

NPR reports that “House of the Dragon’ is the most watched premiere in HBO history“. I watched it, and…meh. I think we may have hit Peak Dragon.

***

The BBC coins a term – presenteeism. Yet another micro-aggression, I suppose.

***

More politics. Here’s a cringeworthy advertisement from Florida’s asshat Governor. Hard to believe people actually vote for this guy.

***

From the Max Planck Institute – OUR BRAIN IS A PREDICTION MACHINE THAT IS ALWAYS ACTIVE. No wonder I’m tired a lot. But this is seriously interesting.

Our brain works a bit like the autocomplete function on your phone – it is constantly trying to guess the next word when we are listening to a book, reading or conducting a conversation. Contrary to speech recognition computers, our brains are constantly making predictions at different levels, from meaning and grammar to specific speech sounds. This is what researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and Radboud University’s Donders Institute discovered in a new study. Their findings are published in PNAS.

***

Finally today, insights from the Grand Old Man of cybersecurity, Bruce Schneier – at least one of NIST’s final four new post-quantum encryption techniques is tragically broken.

One of the most popular algorithms, Rainbow, was found to be completely broken. Not that it could theoretically be broken with a quantum computer, but that it can be broken today—with an off-the-shelf laptop in just over two days. Three other finalists, Kyber, Saber, and Dilithium, were weakened with new techniques that will probably work against some of the other algorithms as well. (Fun fact: Those three algorithms were broken by the Center of Encryption and Information Security, part of the Israeli Defense Force. This represents the first time a national intelligence organization has published a cryptanalysis result in the open literature. And they had a lot of trouble publishing, as the authors wanted to remain anonymous.

Post-quantum refers to a time when we actually have quantum computers that can be used for breaking encryption. We’re not there yet, but criminals and governments (is there a difference?) are quite concerned that all their secrets will be revealed if/when someone builds a viable quantum computer. This is fascinating stuff, and there’s no one better than Schneier to give you the straight story.

Solved today’s Wordle with only two guesses. I guess I’m not totally dim.

Back on Socal freeways today going to and from an office. Massive traffic on I-15S this morning…I sure don’t miss that. But I took backroads and made it to my appointments with minutes to spare, and not too stressed out.

I’m having a hard time understanding this. There are a lot of places I might want to be an expat, but Mexico City isn’t one of them. I’ve been there – it’s a gigantic, dynamic and (in places) dangerous city. I just don’t get it. Your money goes just as far in many, many more desirable places. Go figure.

Seven to eleven inches of rain last night in the Dallas area – amazing! Please send about one-third of that our way in Socal.

I *really* want to see this. Three Thousand Years of Longing. What a great title.

And this.

I totally get this elderly take on Bruce Springsteen lyrics.

“Baby, we were born to run” 
Or walk, depending on my knee.

I give you Tudor Dixon, candidate for Michigan Governor. 100% sure that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. Opining that a 14 year old rape victim would benefit by giving birth. Disgusting.

Where do they find these people? And she’s a UK grad. Arggggh.

I haven’t listened to my big audio system in a while. Not sure why, just couldn’t get motivated – too much else going on to really settle in and listen. This afternoon I decided I wanted to listen to Tame Impala on a real system, so I pulled off the dust covers and fired things up.

But no. Turns out there’s some kind of software problem blocking any new digital music via the combination of my Elac music server, Roon and Tidal. Shit. That led me to poke around a lot troubleshooting, and I realized I’ve never really documented this system, so here goes.

This is a system that’s been many years in the making. It’s a group of components that aren’t necessarily optimal together, but I like them individually. Here’s a picture (a kind of crummy one), and a listing of what’s here. I’ll figure our the digital music software problem later. I think it’s a cross authentication problem between Roon and Tidal, but who knows? Meanwhile I can listen to old-school CDs.

Power: A concert-class piece of gear, a Furman Elite power conditioner and distribution box.

Interconnects: Mostly Anticable. A few random though good quality cables.

Sources:

(1) An Elac Music Discovery Server running Roon software. Hardware includes Cirrus Logic CS4398 DAC’s (192kHz 24-Bit) and Burr Brown op-amps. Mass storage courtesy of a tiny Western Digital solid state drive, USB connected.

(2) Tidal lossless music service, served up via the Elac and Roon.

(3) Marantz CD6006 single disc player. The DACs in the Marantz aren’t as good as in the Elac, but…we’ll fix that in the future.

Preamp: A vintage Dared MC-7P tube preamp running EL-34 tubes. Love the look and sound.

Amps: A pair of Wyred 4 Sound mAmp Class D monoblocs, 250 watts into 8 ohms and 430! watts into 4 ohms (yikes!). Ugly little bastards, but they’re powerful and clean.

Speakers: The mighty Spatial Audio M3s – those 2001 Space Odyssey-looking monoliths on each side in the picture. You can’t see the dual 15-inch drivers in this bad photo. Open baffle speakers with a punch. As it turns out, I don’t need the massive power of the monoblocs with the Spatials’ 92 db sensitivity, but what the hell. I can play music at concert-level volumes, and sometimes do. Sue me.

My listening room configuration is…weird. Lots of glass and stone, furniture in the way, and a high ceiling with lots of acute angles. I end up listening to the Spatials in a near-field mode, which doesn’t really do them justice. They need a BIG room.

OK, back to the software problem. The Elac server works – I can play ripped discs stored on it, and I can play streamed radio. Right now listening to Louisville’s 91.9 station. So the problem is most likely Tidal.

Back in Socal. Hot and a little humid – not what you want from a place that excuses every price and cultural excess as a “sunshine tax”. A little too much sunshine and too little precipitation these days. The tax is noticeable.

We dodged the big security shutdown at San Diego airport today by minutes. We bugged out of there about 15 minutes before they shut the place down. Thank Dog.

I’ve got a week to get my sh*t together and get ready for another trip back to eastern KY to see Dad. Should be fine, and should sleep like a bear in hibernation tonight.

Ahhh, Nashville. We barely knew ye. Flying nonstop from here to San Diego in a bit. We met some old friends for a nice dinner at Connors Seafood and Steak last night. Great meal (I would eat there again), great company (thanks, T&J), but a little bit of stress getting there. Five PM traffic, and somehow I had two different nav systems barking conflicting orders at me while driving. Confusing. And, during all that, I noticed that we were almost out of gas – 9 miles left, according to the car’s computer. But I made the exit, got some gas, shut down both of the chatty nav systems and made it to the restaurant only a little late. Wine was required, stat.

So much going on in the world, but it’s hard for me to focus on anything beyond my family’s drama and my own attempt to cope with it all. Spending a few days back in Socal will be good, and we’ve left a great system of caregivers in place to make sure Dad is as OK as he can be. Right now I’m in a kind of dislocation confusion – days in hotels in Ashland, then at the house in Louisville, then back to Ashland hotels, Louisville again, and now a night somewhere near the airport in Nashville. I’m a veteran traveler, but this is a bit much.

I’m looking forward to enjoying our new pure and expensive well water. And sitting in one place for a few days.

This is a pretty great way to start the day. Yo, Obama! Miss that guy and his sense of humor.

As far as I’m concerned, this is 100% great news. From the Occupy Democrats website:

1. Expands Medicare benefits: free vaccines (2023), $35/month insulin (2023) and caps out-of-pocket drug costs to an estimated $4,000 or less in 2024 and settling at $2,000 in 2025
2. Lowers energy bills: cuts energy bills by $500 to $1,000 per year
3. Makes historic climate investment: reduces carbon emissions by roughly 40% by 2030
4. Lowers health care costs: saves the average enrollee $800/year in the ACA marketplace, allows Medicare to negotiate 100 drugs over the next decade, and requires drug companies to rebate back price increases higher than inflation
5. Creates manufacturing jobs: more than $60 billion invested will create millions of new domestic clean manufacturing jobs
6. Invests in disadvantaged communities: cleaning up pollution and taking steps to reducing environmental injustice with $60 billion for environmental justice
7. Closes tax loopholes used by wealthy: a 15% corporate minimum tax, a 1% fee on stock buybacks and enhanced IRS enforcement
8. Protects families and small business making $400,000 or less

All of this, while still reducing the federal deficit by over $300 billion.

What’s not to like? I’m sure the GOP will twist and turn these facts into something that sounds horrible, but this is a straight-up win for most citizens.

Loooong day yesterday, but my Dad is now safely in his room at the new facility. He’s comfortable, and that’s about all he can ask or get at this stage. The logistics of everything went better than expected. In just one day I coordinated the move among the three healthcare entities, acquired a storage unit for his excess furniture/belongings, hired movers to carry and transport the big stuff, and then me and my brothers got ‘er done. Tag on a night in a fairly shitty hotel and here we are. I’m thankful that Dad is now in a place that can give him enough attention.

One thing is certain, it’s now very, very clear that once you stop moving around and walking, your fate is sealed. Ability to get on your feet and walk is the dividing line between those with hope and those on their way out. Note to self – keep walking.

This is another one of those days when some humor will really help. Here’s some crude-ish levity from where else, the Internet.

Back to Ashland tomorrow, for 2-3 days. Time to move my Dad from assisted living to his next stop in our weird healthcare system, a rehab facility where they can give him round the clock care. All under the supervision of hospice.

This move has a lot of logistics, as we’ll have to clear out his apartment where he’s spent the last two and a half years. Moving furniture isn’t as easy as it was a few years ago, but I’m still able, so one of my brothers and I will do most or all of the move. It’s a sad time, knowing that this is his last move and that we’re getting rid of all but a few of his worldly possessions. It’s humbling – we enter the world with nothing but family (everyone has at least a mother), and we leave the same way.

On a better note, the UK team looked great again last night, and Dad and I talked about it this morning. He is getting to see UK play and he’s enjoying that. Thankful for small blessings.

We’ve taken some nice bike rides the last few days, including a ride down Beargrass Creek trail, another round and round Cherokee Park, and then yesterday exploring Seneca Park. The Louisville park system is superb – it’s one of the things that makes Louisville a great place to live.

Another “great place to live” factor is the food scene here. I’m sure I’m putting on pounds again during my time here. Whoever first said “…man does not live by bread alone…” never walked into Blue Dog Bakery. So far we’ve knoshed at Blue Dog, Red Hog, Volare, The Post, Joella’s, Louisville Cream, Noble Funk, plus Sal’s Speakeasy, Bob Evan’s and Evaroni’s in the Ashland area. I’m a stress eater, and that list proves it.

These days it often feels like we’re living in some strange science fiction or political thriller story. This stuff just can’t be happening. I have that feeling reading the accounts of the FBI’s search of the ex-President’s home and subsequent seizure of unauthorized classified documents. From CNN, here’s a list of what was found:

According to the search warrant receipt, federal agents seized:

• 1 set of “top secret/SCI” documents
• 4 sets of “top secret” documents
• 3 sets of “secret” documents
• 3 sets of “confidential” documents.

The warrant receipt didn’t detail what such classified documents were about.

From https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/12/politics/search-warrant-receipt-trump-fbi-maralago-key-lines/index.html

That is some serious stuff – mishandling TS/SCI classified info will get any normal US citizen hard time in a prison, years of it. We’ll see if any of this sticks to Teflon Don.

***

In other news, the beating and stabbing of Salman Rushdie onstage at an author event in New York is sad. Rushdie is a great author and had the courage to stand up to Muslim extremists, the Arab world’s version of MAGA extremists. It seems one of them finally caught up with him.

***

I’m worried that something is seriously wrong in my friend Robert Sommer’s life, as he hasn’t posted anything to his blog in two weeks. Robert is a prolific blogger and a bit of a polymath. I wish him well, whatever is keeping him away.

***

McSweeney’s has totally captured my grill and smoker vibe. Hate to say it, but that guy is a lot like me.

***

Texas politicians range from evil to despicable to crazy. From one of the crazies, “God wrote the Constitution”. So much for the Amendments….

Watching KY play basketball the last two nights has been like Christmas in August. An unexpected treat. The games have been lopsided, but the good news is (1) no one got hurt, and (2) the team looks stellar. Maybe the most athletic UK team I’ve ever seen. They’ll be fun to watch when the season officially starts in 3 months, 1 day, 18 hours.

Another treat is that it’s Friday, and that means olive loaf at Blue Dog. Their olive bread is as good as it gets.

Maybe it’s me. Louisville was scheduled for biblical rain yesterday, and then nothing. Not a drop. If the drought follows me here, I give up. Time to move to a Hawaiian rain forest and really test the superpower.

I’m counting the minutes until the UK game tonight. I know the first couple of games won’t mean much, but even so…it’ll be exciting to see them on the court. If this is any indication, then wow!

In political news, I’m really enjoying the comments and tweets from the MAGA crowd after the FBI’s search of Mar a Lago. They’re shocked, shocked I say, that anyone would dare encroach upon King Rat Trump. All of a sudden government official controls on sensitive documents isn’t as important as, say, 2016 during the “lock her up” era. They’re kind of missing the point that no one is above the law, including ex-Presidents. In MAGA world, laws are for the little people. And the non-white folks.

Alright, this is depressing. The next zoonotic virus from China is loose, a Level 4 contagion, no less. I don’t think the world can take another pandemic. Stay away from shrews.

Finally, in science news, we’ve successfully profiled the Strong Force (how can the headline not be “The Force is strong with this one…”?). This is a big deal and helps physicists and cosmologists understand the basic building blocks of reality. Gravity, you’re up next.

After the drive up I-64 from Nashville, and the subsequent drive back down I-64 to Louisville, I can attest that this McSweeney’s piece is right on point. “I’M THE AVERAGE DRIVER ON THE ROAD RIGHT NOW, AND I’M OUT OF MY FUCKING MIND.“ I do love me some McSweeney’s.

Meanwhile in Louisville, I’m plotting ways to eat all the heirloom tomatoes I can get my hands on. And looking forward to promised torrential rains and thunderstorms. And counting the hours until we can watch the Cats play hoops in the Bahamas tomorrow night.

I realized I haven’t published a picture for a while. Here’s one of a guy who knows how to have fun in the heat. We should all take a lesson.

Finally, on the news that Trump’s “home” at Mar a Lago got raided by the FBI searching for unauthorized classified documents: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha……

It’s 630am eastern US time, and I’m desperate to focus on something other than my Dad’s fight to stay alive. There was a lot of drama this weekend – some related to his move back to a hybrid assisted living / hospice situation, and some related to brothers traveling on KY highways and getting stuck for hours behind wrecks.

Dad spent five days in the COVID ward, a situation I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Alone, very sick, with a doctor visiting once per day and absolutely minimal contact with nursing staff. Seeing how the hospital runs the ward was eye-opening. It’s practical and logical – minimizing contact with sick, coughing patients – but it’s a tough situation for the patients. They’re alone staring at the ceiling 23 hours per day. Dad was too sick to talk on the phone, and didn’t have his hearing aids. So, isolation. I understand the how and why of his situation, but there’s got to be a better way.

All that said, his hospital stay did allow him to build a little strength back and stabilize some of his vital signs. His discharge doesn’t mean he’s less ill, it just means that the hospital MD says there’s nothing else they can do to help him. Hospice care starts today, and I hope they can make his remaining time more comfortable.

One moral of the story – if you don’t have a living will and end-of-life directives, get it done ASAP. This isn’t something you want people guessing about in a time of stress.

But on to other subjects. The most interesting thing in the news lately is that the “failed” Presidency of Joe Biden has turned out to be the most successful in decades in terms of passing legislation that helps people. The latest rabbit-from-hat trick of passing a slimmed-down climate and healthcare bill is simply amazing. All told, in two years Biden has gotten more done than any President in the last 50 years. While I’m not in favor of Biden running again in 2024, he’s done extremely well in his first two years. Good for us, and good for him.

Another notable thing squarely in my sight is the binary nature of water in the US. As a resident of the west and the midwest, the different couldn’t be more obvious. It’s getting wetter east of the Rockies (more hot humid weather, more rainfall), and getting much drier west of the Rockies. Two Americas. Rainfall here in KY is intense this summer, with long-term trends showing more and more extreme weather including more precipitation. And the exact opposite in southern CA. It’s fascinating, but long-term terrifying. I fully expect to see giant pipeline projects running across the Rockies to bring eastern water to the west. And dozens of desal plants to bring water in from the ocean. That’s a 50-year project that should start now, but won’t start until enough people die or are disposessed.

Last but not least, UK plays it’s first exhibition hoops game in two days, in the Bahamas August 10th. I can’t wait!

Finally, the explanation for how and why the US seems to have gone to shit in the last 20 years. McSweeney’s blows the whistle on the US Department of Suffering and Horror.

And here I thought it was the millenials. Go figure.

Greetings from Etown. I’ve been here a whole seven hours and now have the strong urge to watch this Cameron Crowe movie. Always liked that one.

First observations last night upon landing in Nashville:

1. Southwest tried pretty hard to screw us over with our Houston-Nashville connection, but a brisk run between gates and some heavy-handed arguments at the gate got us on board our scheduled flight with minutes to spare. There’s a longer story there, but Southwest’s legendary customer service took a hit.
2. Outside, it was really hot and humid. I’m mostly OK with hot and humid, but this was equatorial.
3. I got 2-3 days worth of exercise just walking from our gate to the rental cars at Nashville airport. It was better than catching a shuttle, but…damn.
4. Avis was good enough to give me a different car after I questioned the first one. It was a Jeep that sure looked like it had been in a wreck. Wheels and tires way too small; something just looked wrong about it. So we ended up with a nice Rav4 with a noisy, air-leaking windshield. Win some, lose some.
5. Truckers on I-65 are assholes. At least a few of them. Had at least one of them playing the block-and-box game with me for quite a few miles. Definitely decided he was going to control the road.

From here we drive northeast on the Bluegrass Parkway, a route I’ve never taken. Another first. We’ll get to Lexington too late for any hot Spauldings’ doughnuts, sadly. And then on to Ashland and Kings Daughters Medical Center to see Dad. His medical record indicates he’s still with us – he can’t really talk on the phone, too weak. It’s a little too early to declare victory (reaching Ashland while he’s still here/there), but odds are now decent.

Travel day today, so not much to say. Heading for eastern KY where my Dad will make the transition from a hospital setting to hospice care. Our planned weekend in Nashville is cancelled; we’ll just land and drive northeast from there. Hope to see our Nashville friends in the not too distant future.

This is just depressing. I thought the headline was interesting, but the more I read the more I realize how many people have grabbed onto “MAGA” as their new religion. Not just politics, but religion. A concept/cult/lifestyle/movement they believe and take joy in.

It *is* interesting that there’s no equivalent on the liberal side of things. We generally don’t put our leaders on a pedestal or T-shirts. We don’t stick to the talking points (e.g. “ˇTrump won”) and deflect any information that might contradict the party’s belief system. And we definitely don’t have the professional branding and meme-generating machine that conservatives have. The conservative movement seems to love a circus, and the liberal movement…not so much.

The fact that these folks pay to go to conferences and wallow in the hard-core conservative political mud is the depressing part. They love the movement, the same way I love UK basketball. That tells me we’re NEVER going to win them over to a more moderate point of view – they’re just too invested in the MAGA cult. It has become a lifestyle, deeply ingrained in every aspect of their identity.

I’m not sure where else to go with this. People will be people, and tribal behavior is inevitable. I suppose we’re witnessing the formation of a new, well-funded tribe that likes to get together and make a lot of noise.

Bloomberg adds a lot of detail today on the subject I’ve been touting for a while – the American West has a big, big water problem with no solution in sight. Bloomberg’s charts, graphs and pictures tell the story pretty well. Unless the current historic drought suddenly ends and trends reverse, the West can’t sustain the population that’s here.

This graph is the one that does it for me. This isn’t a recent problem – we’re in the late stages of a 70 year trend.

I said this to a family member last night – in the next couple of decades, I think millions of people will have to leave the West and move back across the Rockies to places where it rains. Given that prediction and probability, there’s probably a way to invest and make a ton of money. In a nutshell, the value of homes and property in the West will go down and the value of property east of the Rockies is going up.

That disruption is going to get ugly. Paolo Bacigalupi’s excellent and now-weirdly-prescient book, The Water Knife, becomes real. The investment we just made in water security may turn out to be the very thing that preserves the value of our home.

More news from Big Blue Nation this morning. We’re playing Gonzaga in the second game of the season!

Kentucky Basketball Schedule 2022-23

• Nov. 15: Michigan State (Champions Classic) | Gainbridge Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, IN
• Nov. 20: Gonzaga Bulldogs | McCarthey Athletic Center Arena, Spokane, Washington
• Nov. 29: Bellarmine | Rupp Arena, Lexington, KY
• Dec. 4: Michigan (Basketball Hall of Fame London Showcase) | The O2 Arena, London, England
• Dec. 17: UCLA (CBS Sports Classic) | Madison Square Garden, New York, NY
• Dec. 31: Louisville | Rupp Arena, Lexington, KY
• Jan. 28: Kansas (SEC/Big 12 Challenge) | Rupp Arena, Lexington, KY
• TBA: Duquesne | Rupp Arena, Lexington, KY
• SEC home games: Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana State, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt.
• SEC road games: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Missouri, Tennessee and Vanderbilt

That might be the toughest schedule in all of college hoops. I sure hope Calipari and the new team are up to it.

Our new water system is working. The crews have left, no doubt to sign up their kids for colleges that they can now afford.

The system goes to a LOT of trouble to produce the clear, soft water we now have. There are five treatment filters or stages for our drinking water, and four stages purify all the other water used in the home – showers, washing machine, etc. Three stages treat the water used for irrigation. Even that water is miles better than the water we were using a couple of months ago.

Our biggest water problem was that a very common iron-concentrating bacteria is present in the water, and once the water is exposed to air after traveling up the well, those bacteria begin to concentrate the iron in the water and grow, producing red particles. Those particles, left untreated, will build up into a red/orange sludge that discolors everything and makes the water unpalatable.

We’ve lived with it so long, and had tried unsuccessfully to get rid of it through other filters, that we had just accepted that the well water quality was never going to be great. It wasn’t unhealthy to drink with the filtering we were able to do (we think), but the irrigation water looked like hell.

Now all that is history, and the biggest factor is a new filter stage called a vortex. It’s a patented stage that pushes the well water into a sand filter filled with sand (doh) and at least one proprietary mineral, then pushes it hard back into the holding tank, creating a vortex. The vortex action plus the sand filter removes the iron-concentrating bacteria. Our water has never looked so clear.

Another feature of the new system is that the water it produces will no longer harm our trees and plants. The iron and salt concentrated in our previous irrigation feed was toxic to a LOT of the flora on our property. We’ve lost a lot of old plants over the years, like some big figs, nut trees, citrus, etc. Part of that loss is drought-related, but a lot was due to hard, hard water. I’m looking forward to replacing some of those plants now that we’re sure we can keep them alive.

Soooooo….we think we’ve solved our drought and water problems here at our Socal home. That leaves 40 million other people to figure it out. Good luck.

Woke up to good news this morning. One, my Dad made it through the night after being admitted to the hospital for pneumonia. That’s a big milestone, and now he’s in a spot where his various complications can be treated 24×7. Hope springs eternal.

Two, and not in the same zip code of importance but I’ll mention it anyway, UK signed a fantastic 6-11 center for this 2022-2023 season, Ugonna Kingsley Onyenso. It’s shaping up to be a great team and a great season. You can never have too many talented big men in college hoops. Given the state of the world lately, I’ll take any good news we can get.

Today is a full day of medical appointment wrangling, business meetings, and hovering over the crowd of people installing the new water system. Not much to look forward to.

I did manage to amuse myself this morning by installing a countdown timer on the blog, counting the time left to UK’s first official 2022 basketball game. I want to use that to help my Dad hang on till then; bribe him with the fun of seeing one more season, starting 3.5 months from now. It’s unlikely, but…anything that helps.