We landed at Amsterdam Schiphol airport yesterday after a so-so transatlantic flight. It was so-so because the plane was uncomfortably warm the entire flight. I’m used to planes getting nice and chilly mid-flight, but not this one. So even with good seats and stretching out, I find it hard to sleep when I’m sweating. Got some rest and watched a couple of movies, but no real sleep. And I felt it when we hit Amsterdam.

Schiphol is a *huge* airport. There’s a lot of signage, but there are multiple ways to get from point A to B and the signs show you all the options. Unfortunately, to a sleep deprived fur-en-er, options were not what I needed. I needed clarity, but Schiphol doesn’t offer much of that. It’s big and complex. We wandered around for a while, took a wrong turn or two, but finally found our way to our airport adjacent hotel, the CitizenM, using the map feature of my phone. That was an experience. CitizenM is modern and trendy, and its hallmark is tiny functional rooms. In a space about 20×10 feet, there was a modular shower, a modular toilet, a sink, a tiny desk and chair, then a queen-sized bed on a platform. No walls. The modular part of the shower and toilet is that they were inside translucent plastic tubes for privacy, but otherwise just in the middle of the single room. Weird. Logical and efficient, but weird.

The other notable feature of the Citizen is that the guest experience was highly personalized. As the reservation holder, my name was splashed around all the hotel’s systems, including the extensive room automation, all controlled by an iPad in the room. Lights, temperature, TV, blinds, alarm – all controlled by the iPad. It was impressive. The hotel was chock full of art, and the small bar/restaurant on the ground floor was pleasant. All in all, I was very pleased with our short night as a Citizen.

We were quite worried about getting back into the airport given all the recent press about it being the most congested airport in Europe due to labor problems. We were advised to arrive at the airport four hours (!!) before our flight. So, we dutifully left our cozy hotel at 430 in the morning and trudged over to Schiphol, about a 10 minute walk. Even that early, it took us two hours to wait through luggage checks, passport checks, security checks and the massive amount of walking through the airport. I can only imagine what it would have been like at 8 or 9am. But we made it comfortably and now sit somewhere in the bowels of the airport beast, waiting for a bus to take us to our plane. Which will take us to Southampton.

My thoughts exactly on Musk’s acquisition of Twitter. Welcome to hell.

In the technology magazine The Verge, editor Nilay Patel wrote, “Welcome to hell, Elon.” The problems with Twitter, Patel wrote, “are not engineering problems. They are political problems.” The site itself is valuable only because of its users, he points out, and trying to regulate how people behave is “historically a miserable experience.” 

Patel notes that to attract advertising revenue, Musk will have to protect advertisers’ brands, which means banning “racism, sexism, transphobia, and all kinds of other speech that is totally legal in the United States but reveals people to be total a**holes.” And that content moderation, of course, will infuriate the right-wing cheerleaders who “are going to viciously turn on you, just like they turn on every other social network that realizes the same essential truth.” And that’s even before Twitter has to take on the speech laws of other countries.

Letters From and American, 10/29/22

Today’s the day. We leave for LAX in a few hours, and from there we fly to Amsterdam. Then on to Southampton, and from there we cruise north along Norway’s coast. This is a whole lot of trouble just to see some energized particles in the solar wind.

We have about a day and a half in Southampton, so we decided to rent a car and see some sights. Stonehenge, the New Forest, and Salisbury Cathedral are all in play. Salisbury was my first European cathedral, many years ago, and it made quite an impression on me. I’d like to see if it seems as majestic now that I’m better traveled.

I’m taking all the Fuji camera gear, and this trip will be the deciding test. If I still get pictures I like better with an iPhone, I’ll declare myself an inferior photographer and divest all the Fuji gear. That’ll be sad, but I have to apply the Dirty Harry rule: “A good man always knows his limitations.” Hard to accept, but true.

Another acid test – if I get sick again as a result of this cruise, that’s it. I’m done with them for the foreseeable future. I know a certain spouse who won’t be happy about that, but…Dirty Harry rule again. I’m tired of losing perfectly good days to illness.

I realized that I’ll miss several other things by being gone the next couple of weeks, not just the elections. UK’s preseason hoops games. Halloween. The peak of the fall leaves in KY. The probable first rain of the season in Socal. Everyday life doesn’t seem so mundane when you have to miss it.

This awful summer of sickness, death and travel has really crystallized my desires for the future. I miss the grandsons, and everyday life with them can be every bit as good as seeing the world. Better. Gonna do something about that when I get back.

This is *exactly* how I feel about the upcoming elections. How can some of these races be close (looking at you, Georgia and Arizona)?

Big day in financial markets yesterday. Elon Musk bought Twitter for $40 billion. I sold a one bedroom condo for slightly less than that. Why does he get all the headlines?

I just don’t get the Twitter acquisition. Perhaps, just perhaps, Musk can drive its value up via operational efficiencies and some less complicated content moderation. But so what? Musk typically spends his time on transformational, disruptive technology plays, and I just don’t see that with Twitter. Worst case, he made an off-the-cuff public offer/bet of $40B and the SEC is holding him to it. He’s worth $211B, so he can afford it. But what a waste.

We voted by mail yesterday. It was easy except for all the weird judiciary positions one could vote on with basically no information. We did our best – when in doubt, we defaulted to D. In doing so I realized we’ll be gone for the big Nov 8 election, wherein we get to see who wins Senate races, Guv races, and who controls Congress for a while. We’ll be somewhere north of the Arctic circle on that day, floating around in a COVID concentration device.

Speaking of devices, we bought Kathryn a new iPhone 14 this week, and it was *painful*. Apple says they will transfer all your data from the old phone to the new one, but they do a shitty job of it. The guy they had “assisting” us didn’t know what he was doing. When I suggested a direct phone-phone transfer using Bluetooth and NFC (what apple calls Quickstart), he didn’t know what I was talking about. He sort of knew how to do a backup/restore from iCloud, and that’s all.

Plus, we made an appointment to spend the least time possible in the store, and that was useless. Turns out appointments are no different than walkins -we just got in an electronic queue (that we couldn’t see) and waited behind folks who just showed up. I let the kid serving us know that Apple’s idea of an appointment is different than mine.

Long story short, we declined to spend an hour plus in the store with Apple ham-handedly transferring data, and went home and restored her data to her new phone via the backup I had made earlier that day. In ten minutes. Apple customer service used to be great. Now they try, and they are exceedingly polite, but they’re not very useful.

More politics. Been thinking a little about the 2024 Presidential election. A lot of folks think Trump is the inevitable nominee, that his sponsorship by the Republican party is a done deal. And the more I think about it, the more I like the idea. Because Trump is in now in Hillary’s shoes.

Hillary Clinton lost because (a) she ran an uninspired campaign, (b) the damnable Comey memo ten days before the election, and (c) the other side turned out en mass because they loathed her. Twenty five years of focused Clinton hatred allowed the conservatives to completely align, and even drew a lot of middle-of-the-roaders into voting Trump. Or more precisely, voting for anyone but Hillary. They hated Hillary with a passion.

Trump is now that person. Everyone now knows what a disaster Trump will be if he regains power, and everyone knows it’s possible for him to win (hello, 2016). Trump’s nomination will galvanize the D party and 100% of the party will vote for anyone but Trump. And we should get a few rational middle of the roaders to vote D just to keep Trump away from power. Trump will get the MAGA vote, that’s a given. But against Trump, Democrats will turn out in record numbers, the D candidate should get all the Democratic vote and the majority of undecideds, IF we nominate someone electable. Someone reasonable. And that’s the critical path item.

Right now there’s no heir apparent on the Democratic side, and that’s good. Remember Hillary, the chosen one whose turn it was. We’ve got two years to identify one or two good candidates and get them prepped for the battle. Right now my short list is:

• MN Senator Amy Klobuchar
• KY Governor Andy Beshear
• MI Governor Gretchen Whitmer

It’s hard to find someone who has the chops and who doesn’t have a fatal flaw. But any of these three would work, IMHO. I really like Beshear, and having a Red state Governor as the Democratic candidate would be intriguing.

I like this version of Biden a lot. Call out the hypocrites, by name.

I don't want to hear it from MAGA Republicans. pic.twitter.com/8FXRmZdE7C

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 25, 2022

This is what we’re up against in the upcoming elections. Spiteful, delusional, misinformed people. And a lot of barely-contained hate. It’s a tragedy.

I urge you to watch this because it demonstrates the extraordinary success of Republican misinformation on voters in key states.

Democrats have completely underestimated the level of penetration that has happened.

These "voters" ignore facts and spit misinformation. pic.twitter.com/E5mtFfPeqt

— Don Winslow (@donwinslow) October 24, 2022

This is terrifying. I’ll never again feel bad for eradicating ants from our house. Yikes.

***

And we won our golf competition again – repeat champions. We didn’t play our best, but we ground it out and outlasted everyone in our flight. After 45 holes, I’m all golfed out. 47 holes, actually – we played a couple of holes in the flight champions shootout. Didn’t win that one.

I’ve been coming to NOLA for five years to play golf in October, and this is the first time with no rain. Hasn’t rained here in over a month, and according to the locals that’s rare. A couple of years ago the roads were flooded and we had to cancel the tournament.

***

I don’t think I’ll get to see the UK Blue-White game tonight – it doesn’t seem to be a big priority here in Cajun country. But it’ll be a big deal in eastern KY.

***

Tonight’s celebration meal is at Boulevard in Covington. Haven’t been there, but Jon says it’s good…postscript, it was excellent.

Twenty seven holes of golf and I’m sore as hell – haven’t gotten much exercise lately, and it shows. Jon and I did well, finishing either first or second after day one (all the scores weren’t in when we left). Eighteen holes tomorrow will decide the match.

Beautiful, beautiful weather here in NOLA this weekend. I can’t complain about the weather I’ve seen lately – the entire two+ weeks in Louisville, we had cool clear weather. Same here – more like warm and clear, and low humidity.

On the course today there was a local chicken place (Redbird, I think?) serving wings on hole #8. These were the best wings I’ve ever had – crispy, hot, perfectly fried and not messed up with sauce. The guy cooking onsite really knew what he was doing. in fact, those wings were the difference in my game. Pre-wings, I was really struggling, and so was our team. Post-wings, we dominated.

Watching the Padres-Phillies game tonight, and so far the Phillies look much better than the Pads. But it’s tied at 1-1 in the 4th. I may have to just check the score in the morning – likely to be an early bedtime tonight.

This doesn’t surprise me at all. A strong link between consciousness and quantum effects (like entanglement) makes a lot of sense. Though I *am* having a hard time getting the author’s unfortunate phrase “brain water” out of my head. Yuck.

Today Jon and I start the annual Tchefuncta golf tournament. Win or lose, it’ll be great.

Update: After our practice round (a mixed result), we came back to Jon’s place in Covington. An hour or so of loud Tame Impala videos and we’re set for the evening of betting on the tournament (a Calcutta), some good food, and a bourbon tasting. Strategy – avoid a hangover and be ready to win the first round at 9am.

My plan for the day went to hell. Was supposed to do a final tuneup round before leaving for the NOLA golf tourney this weekend, but with 93 degree heat this afternoon (see below, new record, woo hoo), it’s not happening. I’ve learned the hard way that heat exhaustion is my Achilles’ Heel. So…staying inside, reading, packing, trying to get my office/desk space better organized. Listening to Tame Impala (natch) on the Klipsch One, wishing for some tone controls. The Klipsch is very bass-heavy.

The Padres play game one of the NLCS this evening, and that may be today’s saving grace. I’m a fair weather baseball fan. When there’s something big on the line, the games are exciting. Mid-season, it can be real boring. Tonight should be excellent – first time the Padres have been in the championship round in about 40 years. And after beating the Dodgers, it’s all just icing on the cake.

OK, the NY Post is not exactly a bastion of publishing integrity. But if this headline is true, then (a) humanity is terminally stupid, (b) heads should roll at BU, and (c) WTF are they possibly thinking? This would rank among the worst ideas in human history.

After a little more research, yep, this really happened. As reported by Stat, a reputable medical journal. This is *exactly* how Stephen King ended the world in The Stand.

All it will take is one tiny mistake and this civilization-ending virus gets loose.

We are a stupid people…

Here’s a snippet from the latest “Letters From An American” email. Any politician taking this position should be immediately disqualified to hold office. It’s just breathtakingly smug – they’re not hiding who they are anymore, and we should believe them. They don’t believe in elections, they believe in power. And they intend to hold it.

In an interview this morning with CNN’s Dana Bash, Arizona Republican nominee for governor Kari Lake refused to say that she would accept the results of the upcoming election– unless she wins. Former president Trump said the same in 2020, and now more than half of the Republican nominees in the midterm elections have refused to say that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election because, they allege, there was voter fraud. This position is an astonishing rejection of the whole premise on which this nation was founded: that voters have the right to choose their leaders. 

That right was established in the Declaration of Independence separating the 13 British colonies on the North American continent from allegiance to King George III. That Declaration rejected the idea of social hierarchies in which some men were better than others and should rule their inferiors. Instead, it set out a new principle of government, establishing that “all men are created equal” and that governments derive “their just power from the consent of the governed.” 

This is particularly concerning because Kari Lake is perhaps the most dangerous newcomer on the Republican/Trumper side. She is intelligent, well-spoken, a polished media star – and an absolute monster in terms of policy. She’s Trump in much better packaging. I predict that MAGAworld will elevate her right to the top of their cult as soon as she gets to be better known.

Given the infantile, id-driven, and media-influenced behavior of about 40% of our voters, Lake is a perfect candidate.

I’m not reading anything about this, but I’m starting to get worried about a drought east of the Rockies. Or maybe across the entire latitude band from the Ohio River to the Rhine River. River traffic on both rivers (and the Mississippi) is extremely curtailed due to low water levels. All those Viking river cruise commercials you see, those cruises are shutting down because the rivers are too low. I’ve been on the Rhine; it’s a *big* river. And the Mississippi’s problems are telling – if it’s low, that means all the tributaries are low. Louisville is about as dry as I’ve ever seen it – it’s been a very dry Autumn so far.

Of course we’re still in the worst three-year drought period in history in Socal, just overtaking the most recent previous three-year period for the record. The drought west of the Rockies is bad, real bad. If we lose the wet zone east of the Rockies…time to move to Alaska. This looks like a good place to live.

OK, the Dems are actually getting better at online messaging. I hope every woman in America sees this Texas ad.

Whose choice is this? Greg Abbott's? This November 8th, it's your choice. What do you choose? Texas Women or Texas GOP Extremists! To support us go here: https://t.co/KlGtHSY0Pa #nochoice #mothersagainstgregabbott #txlege #womensrights pic.twitter.com/89lfr6ZajF

— Mothers Against Greg Abbott PAC (@MomsAGAbbott) October 13, 2022

This is the most impactful and cool visualization I’ve seen in a long time. Maybe ever. It illustrates how 60 years of throwing objects into Earth orbit have made our near-planetary space very crowded. An alien civilization approaching our planet would see it just like this, a planet surrounded by a dense fog of rapidly-orbiting satellites, used launch vehicles, and space junk. We’ve treated our orbital space like a hillbilly front yard.

I really think that a next-generation career (OK, maybe 2 generations from now) will be piloting a cleanup vehicle – approaching and capturing objects that clutter up low-Earth orbit, then salvaging them.

While it’s great that SpaceX doesn’t contribute to the junk problem (their reusable booster strategy), but *does* contribute to the density by launching hundreds of Starlink satellites per month.

The simulation and visualization by Leolabs is a little misleading, because it gives us no feel for altitude. We’re looking from a high POV and all of the objects look like they’re on the same vertical plane. Of course that’s not so, and the reason we can still launch anything through that clutter cloud is that the total volume of LEO orbits is very, very large. You can get a feel for the clutter by altitude with Leolabs perigee filter. But unabated, at some point the density will make launches problematic, and that’s when the space salvage business will take off (pun intended). I’d love to be around to see it.

This might be the least positive Tame Impala song in Parker’s discography. I’m pretty sure it’s written to describe moving from being truly young (teens? 20s?) to adulthood, maybe turning 30. But it works just as well in my circumstance.

“It Might Be Time”

Something doesn’t feel right
That’s enough for one night
Hope y’all get home alright
There I go, blame it on the weather

But hey, there’s nothin’ wrong
I’m only tired of all these voices
Always sayin’ nothing lasts forever

It might be time to face it
It ain’t as fun as it used to be, no
You’re goin’ under
You ain’t as young as you used to be
It might be time to face it
You ain’t as cool as you used to be, no
You won’t recover
You ain’t as young as you used to be

It might be time to face it
It might be time to face it

It’s definitely time.

Wow, what a long travel day. Arrived home in Socal at 1130pm Pacific time, or 230am Eastern, my originating time zone. A little past my bedtime. But I held up surprisingly well, no thanks to Southwest. I attribute my travel stamina and patience with the delays to two things. One, the most excellent Joella’s kale crunch salad (with hot chicken) I had before leaving for the airport. Eating nothing for the next 12 hours was easy. And second, listening to Tame Impala the entire second flight, from Denver to San Diego. My seatmates may have cast some side eye at the old guy with headphones obviously enjoying his music, but it got me through the worst part of any late-night flight – the last couple of hours.

I *never* listen to music on a flight, but that might have to change. I wasn’t sure it would even work – streaming Youtube music across aircraft satellite-based Wifi service is nothing short of a miracle, which I’ll have to write up in another post. But it did work, and I bounced around listening to all of my Parker favorites: Let It Happen, Lost in Yesterday, Breathe Deeper, Is it True, It Might Be Time, The Less I Know the Better, and many more. The music is so upbeat, and the lyrics! His chanting-style repetition gets in your head and won’t let go. For me, it’s a complete mood-setter. Normally I would have been tired and discouraged at being stuck in a seat for hours, late at night, but listening to Parker’s songs I was happy and energized. Better than a drug.

Now I have to listen to some of the same songs on my home system. I hope they have the same effect in high fidelity.

Travel day again today, and fortunately I got a good night’s sleep in prep for it. Plus, I cut back on my upcoming crazy travel schedule, cutting 6 days over the next 6 weeks. Time to make some more rational lifestyle decisions, all things considered.

On a side note, I can’t tell you how much fun it is to have the Roomba clean my floors before leaving, as opposed to that one more little chore before the flight. A great use of technology!

Here’s where I’m heading – this is the sunset from our deck last night, taken by K. Those aren’t mountains in the distance, those are clouds on the coast.

This Tame Impala song and video is my latest favorite. It’s completely brilliant. The lyrics and the video tell the story of a man dying of a heart attack and the visions he has in his dying moments. Dark subject, but completely amazing. The song itself is mesmerizing – I can listen to it over and over.

Much to my surprise, I found a remix of it that I like almost as well. I usually don’t care for remixes or covers, but…wow. These two singers nailed it – Meg Mac. Their emphasis on the bridge lyrics, a kind of rap, is hypnotic. In Kevin Parker’s original version, you can hear the rhythm of the words but not quite make out the words. And they’re worth hearing.

I will not vanish and you will not scare me
Try to get through it, try to bounce to it
All the while thinking I might as well do it
They be loving someone and I’m not that stupid
Take the next ticket to take the next train
Why would I do it? And you wanna think that

What a terrible night. Slept only an hour or so at a time, and each time I either dreamed of or woke up thinking about all the big mistakes I’ve made, professional and personal. Kind of a greatest screwups list. Stuff I hadn’t thought about in years came back to haunt me. Maybe this is some kind of PTSD after all the shit that’s gone down lately. Whatever it is/was, today I’m a walking zombie.

In other good news, the airport that we’re flying to and from for the Norway trip has just been revealed as a hot mess, with severe operational problems. Great. I checked our KLM tickets, and they’re changable but not refundable. At this stage changing anything is a crap shoot, so we may have to just stick with the plan and hope that Schiphol isn’t as fucked up as the article says.

Making the trifecta, last night Jessamine got sick and is going to the MD today with what is likely croup. That backs up today’s article in NPR about kids getting lots more respiratory illnesses this year.

Good god, this is so depressing. I’m pretty sure I bought one.

Hmmm. So much for the perfect seat. Padres lost, and UK lost an ugly one to Carolina. I was 0-2 in fandom yesterday. Maybe I should root for Trump.

I had a perfect seat at the bar of the Ashland hotel. Padres wild card game on one big screen, UK vs South Carolina on the other, right in front of me. The two or three people around me switched to my fave bourbon, Noah’s Mill, based on my order. I’m an influencer – who knew?

It would have been perfect except for one guy next to me who was loud, pushy, and irritating. Think Ned Ryerson the life insurance salesman in Groundhog Day. That guy. He couldn’t stop pounding me on the shoulder and talking loudly about nonsense.

So now I’m in my room with one screen, keeping track of the UK football game on computer. I just couldn’t take the Ned treatment any longer. But it’s probably good that I can’t order another Noah’s.

Wow, straight out of the movies. This has political conspiracy written all over it. An assassination with close ties to Trump and Mar a Lago. Someone is cleaning up the loose ends.

***

A new take on the white man’s burden. Yeah, this guy wins the “doesn’t understand irony” award for the day. What an asshole.

***

Pythons. One more reason to stay away from Florida. It’s a tragedy that these rapidly reproducing top predators have been introduced to the US. We should just dig a wide canal across the northern part of Florida and turn it into an island.

***

I’m in a bit of a mood this morning because it’s another funeral weekend in eastern KY. There are some bright spots – I’m told the leaves are quickly turning to red, gold and orange on the route to Ashland. So that’s something. Plus I get to spend some good time with the grandsons today (driving them to Ashland) and tomorrow (at their grandmother’s house). So maybe things even out.

***

Speaking of funerals, I’m pretty sure this is where I want to end up. It’s cheaper than a traditional burial, and knocks a few last things off my bucket list. I should go ahead and purchase my “seat” now. I hope some friends come to the launch party.

Saw some true wisdom on the Internet this morning, at Hacker News of all places.

To anyone full of regret, I’d just like to give a quote by Marcus Aurelius (a Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher)

Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now take what’s left and live it properly.

That’s brilliant. The past is gone, you can’t touch it or change it. It’s dead. But every morning you wake up and get a chance to do things better.

And…it’s pumpkin season in Kentucky!