Lotta good news lately.

• Trump’s tax returns are finally in the public record.
• Marriage equality took a few steps forward.
• Herschel Walker is his own worst enemy in the GA Senate runoff. Georgians seem to have noticed.
• The DJIA is on the rebound, leading several gurus to proclaim that the bear market is over. I may be able to stay retired.
• Madison Cawthorn is exiting the House of Representatives. One less shallow, hollow, wanna-be-celebrity in Congress.
• Crypto investment gambling is collapsing, as any greater fool scheme should.
• The Oath Keepers “leaders” were convicted of serious crimes. They’ll be in jail for a while.
• The US beat Iran and moved forward in the FIFA World Cup.

All in all, a pretty good month, I’d say.

I tried to go to a workplace close to downtown San Diego this morning, and gave up after a half hour or so. All the roads, freeways and surface streets, were clogged and crawling. I just don’t have the patience to do that commute any longer, so I’m not. I turned back and told my company friends that I would be remote today. It now seems that Wednesday is the worst traffic day every week.

Ironically, the meeting I was trying to get to was a discussion of bringing everyone back into the office at least three days/week. The management of this company (I’m an advisor) is hell-bent to re-establish an in-office culture. My situation is a bit unique, but there’s almost no scenario in which I would do a daily long commute again. Too stressful, too wasteful, too dangerous, too expensive. I think anyone who *can* say no financially *will* say no.

These days the only commute I have patience with is the flight from Socal to Kentucky. One of several good reasons pictured below.

Is an evening enjoying a bottle of wine worth the pain, the absolute misery, of a scheduled workout with a trainer the next morning?

This is not a hypothetical. And the answer is no, it is not. In my youth I could drink the night before strenuous exercise, but no more. This getting old shit is getting old.

Today in the US we start The Interregnum – my name for that short three week period between the end of Thanksgiving weekend and the start of zero productivity as Christmas spins up. In corporations, this is the last chance to get anything done before everyone checks out for the year. At home, preparations are made for holiday celebrations and travel. Gifts are purchased, the house is decorated and everyone is in a high state of anticipation for the two weeks at the end of the year. At least that’s how it is in the middle class US.

I’m sad but thankful that The West Wing TV marathon is over. I spent every waking minute not otherwise occupied glued to the TV, reliving how that show always entertained and inspired me. It’s like a drug, I can’t not watch it if it’s playing. Those characters, that dialogue…it’s a masterpiece. But now I can get back to wasting time in other ways.

Big news from Hawaii – Mauna Loa erupted, first time in 40 years. The last time we stood close to the massive rim of Mauna Loa, we were busy buying a house in KY, sight unseen, doing the deal via iPhone atop the volcano. I still think that’s a cool story.

Speaking of cool stories, on Saturday I witnessed Chris Rodriguez breaking the all-time UK record for 100-yard games, passing Bennie Snell and Alfred (Sonny) Collins. That’s quite an accomplishment for Rodriguez, but the story revolves around Collins. I played against Sonny Collins when I was a sophomore. Boyd County played Madisonville in the Recreation Bowl to start the season, and Collins was a nationally-recognized talent – the best running back in the country.

I found an obscure article on the KY High School Athletic Association website, chronicling that game

— In 1971, UK Coach John Ray attended the Rec Bowl for the second year in a row to watch Madisonville running back Alfred “Sonny” Collins. In 1970, Collins rushed for 106 yards and a TD, but he also fumbled four times in a 28-14 loss to Highlands. He didn’t fumble in ’71, however, and rushed for 170 yards and three TDs in a 27-7 victory over Boyd County.

https://khsaa.org/granddaddy-rec-bowl-has-unmatched-history/

My part of the story is that I was starting my first varsity game as a sophomore – I played defensive back and on special teams. So I saw a lot of Collins – mostly as he ran past me. But one time in particular, early in the game, I got a clean shot at him. He was coming at me impossibly fast, but I kept him in my sights and ran at him, anxious to take him down. He hit me so hard I couldn’t believe it. I had never felt anyone with the power he delivered – he ran right through me. I was lucky I didn’t get knocked out. For the first time I realized that there was a whole different level of athlete, a level that turned good, strong players like me into also-rans. Collins went on to become an All-American college player at UK and had a good pro career.

Collins and Madisonville beat us handily, and I tackled Collins several times, but I’ll never forget that first one-on-one collision. It was an education.

Woke up feeling philosophical today. Spending the morning exploring two big, interesting questions:

1. What is memory, and how does it actually work?
2. Is there any validity to the idea of quantum consciousness?

Consciousness and memory – what are they exactly, how do they work? The more I read, the more questions I have.

One of our cable channels (HLN, whatever that is) is running nonstop episodes of The West Wing, my #2 all-time favorite show. #1 is The Expanse, then The West Wing, and it’s a little murky after that. Maybe Yellowstone, maybe Breaking Bad, maybe the original Star Trek. Requires more thought than it’s worth.

But back to The West Wing. I hadn’t realized it until yesterday, but TWW is the thing that turned me from somewhat conservative, somewhat apolitical, into a card-carrying liberal. Watching just a couple of episodes, it was so obvious – all the thoughts and feelings I originally had came rushing back, and I remembered those times when I heard or saw something on the show and realized “yes, that’s the way it should be”.

The West Wing was wholly the product of Aaron Sorkin, and all the ideas and dialogue that came out of the characters’ mouths was his. So I guess Aaron Sorkin turned me into a liberal. This would have been in the late 90s and early 2000s, a period when I was doing a lot of soul-searching (longer story, not for the blog). Sorkin’s dialogue was smart, witty, fast and interesting. Watching it now, it still is captivating. And his vision for the role of government was, and still is, inspiring for me. Watching that show, for the first time I thought logically about the role of government, what it should and shouldn’t be. And it’s so simple. For a wealthy country like us, a country with massive resources, here are the simple instructions:

• If people are hungry, get them some food. Don’t debate, don’t delay, get some food to them.
• If people are sick, get them some health care. Don’t argue about whether they deserve it or can afford it, just get them access to care.
• If people are scared, do your best to reassure them. Give them facts, be straight with them.
• Do everything in your power to educate the country’s citizens.
• If people are at risk because their air or water or food or drugs are dangerous, fix that. Don’t let stupid/greedy/evil decisions by individuals or corporations put citizens at risk.
• If people are homeless, get them housed. Give them shelter.
• If the nation is under attack, defend it. And that includes borders – manage and control your national boundaries firmly but with compassion.

We don’t need government to stir us up, to pit us against one another. We don’t need government to define our culture for us. We don’t need government to build empires on other continents.

The West Wing was a fictional government with fictional politicians, but it’s still my ideal of how things could work. I know it’s a silly, somewhat naive dream, but I’m holding on to it.

I love data, and yesterday I wrote about the ongoing national disgrace of gun violence. Here’s some data to use with your gun-loving friends and relatives. Maybe it won’t change their minds, but it helps me be certain that gun control is a big part of the solution.

So here are the two charts you need to win any argument over whether gun laws matter.

1. America, with more guns than any other high income nation, is a wild outlier of gun violence.

2. States with stronger gun laws have much less gun crime. pic.twitter.com/3MS7daGVfI

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) November 23, 2022

I probably knew this, but among his other great achievements, our nation’s Thanksgiving tradition was created by none other than Abraham Lincoln. What a wise, wise man. I was reminded of this by reading today’s Letters From an American.

Lincoln would be appalled at our national culture these days. But that’s a story for another day. Today’s a day for positive thoughts.

We’re taking it easy today and breaking with a lot of tradition. Prime rib roast rather than turkey. No cranberries, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, or oddball casseroles. A tiny gathering rather than a large one – no parents (none left, sadly), no kids, no siblings, no local couples or gaggle of friends. Just the two of us plus one friend. A meal that’s easy to prepare instead of a relentless cooking frenzy during the day. It’ll be the smallest Thanksgiving in my memory, by any measure. It just kinda turned out that way, appropriate for 2022.

Today’s menu at Chez Nichols:

• Smoked and slow-roasted prime ribeye
• Pan-roasted vegetables with gnocchi (one of my favorite recipes – easy and delish)
• Scalloped potatoes
• Stuffing/dressing (even though there’s no turkey to stuff, we just like stuffing)
• Roasted asparagus
• Butternut squash with brown sugar and cinnamon
• Our estate olive oil with some good bread
• Pecan pie and whipped cream
• Your selection of over-the-top wines, starting with a 2014 Quintessa Cab

So I guess we won’t go hungry. Walk-ins are welcome.

The weather in Socal is cool and sunny – it would be perfect if we didn’t need rain so badly. Having said that, the greenery on our property is really looking great now that we have the well water all filtered and pure. Should have made that investment in filtration years ago. Better late than never, my motto.

Here are a few interesting things I read this morning via Hacker News:

• Blue whale songs have gotten significantly lower in frequency over the last 40 years, and no one knows why.
• FM radio had an interesting and tragic beginning. RCA and the FCC should be ashamed.
• A thoughtful essay on photography.

I enjoy my morning reading sessions quite a bit – it’s become a solid habit. There’s a lot to learn about the world, and here in the golden age of online publishing there’s almost no limit to what you can explore via your laptop. I’m thankful for that.

A mass shooting at a Walmart in VA last night. A mass shooting at a gay nightclub in CO a couple of nights ago. Five shootings with body counts at schools in November, so far. On and on it goes, and our “leaders” do nothing.

This Wikipedia page chronicles the school shootings in the US since the turn of the century. It lists 394 incidents over 22 years.

To all my crime-hating conservative friends, get off your asses and do something about this. Reject the NRA, shut them down. Support gun control laws.

Rational, practical, and effective gun control is a moral imperative. Let’s get on with it.

I’ve been thinking about the Twitter saga, as I have a bet with a friend on how it will turn out. As someone who has never had a Twitter account, I’m perfectly suited to opine on the ongoing drama. So here goes.

On one hand, Twitter has become the national platform for commentary on most any issue. For better or worse, it has become our digital commons, and we need such a place. Celebrities, sports stars, “influencers” (gag me), politicians, and regular people all get to interact. And across national boundaries, a great thing. For a while Facebook served that purpose – perhaps still does for some – but these days a mix of Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok are where we hold our open conversations. Each of these are international, diverse communities of people who like interacting with each other, and that’s usually a good thing.

On the other hand Twitter followed Facebook into the gutter, where a small but vocal minority of bad actors drive hatespeech, conspiracy, misogyny, and abuse in general. You either allow the bad actors to poison the well for everyone, or you attempt to manage (or moderate) their voice. Someone has to decide what will be allowed and what will not. That’s called content moderation, and that’s the issue at the heart of Musk’s Twitter takeover. Twitter had a very active content moderation team – too active, in Musk’s humble opinion.

Musk got bent out of shape by what he considered to be excessive content moderation that silenced voices he believed should have been left alone. The First Amendment right to free speech, a wildly misunderstood right, was being violated according to Musk and some of his fellow libertarians. So he spent $44 billion and bought the platform from shareholders, and now is in the position to right the perceived wrongs of the previous management.

What has ensued is instructive. Musk has stripped out 75%-ish of the company’s employees in the quest for efficiency and profitability. Whether that alone destroys the platform (big websites require a LOT of engineering talent to keep running), time will tell. The other thing that Musk has done is to appoint himself the sole decider of content moderation. Who gets to have a voice on Twitter, and what then are they allowed to say? Where Twitter previously has dozens (hundreds?) of people working to police the platform in the quest to be a good steward of our digital commons, it now has one – Musk. Who has a couple of other day jobs.

So Donald Trump and many other destructive forces/voices are being re-enabled on Twitter. Predictably, all manner of unfriendly and unhelpful speech is now growing, rapidly. School’s out, no teachers to keep the kids in line, so the bullies are running amok. And corporate sponsors/advertisers, the veryt heart of Twitter’s business model, are running for the exits. Corporations have become *extremely* sensitive to being associated with any non-politically-correct activity, and Twitter has now become a risk.

One inescapable conclusion from Musk’s actions is that there’s no argument about whether there should be a line that can’t be crossed. Musk has a line, albeit a crooked one. For example, he has declined to reinstate Alex Jones to the platform, as Musk has sympathy for anyone who has lost a child. That’s a good reason, and the right decision – Jones is evil. But it proves that the argument is simply where the line should be and who gets to decide its position.

What else can we conclude from this?

Same as it ever was, the wealthy can and will purchase and influence our national means of communication – newspapers, radio stations, TV networks and now digital platforms. Nothing has changed about that.

Digital platforms are, however, two-way communications platforms. Anyone and everyone can have a say. That’s new.

Digital platforms are susceptible to software bots masquerading as humans and flooding the zone with specific messages, information or disinformation. That’s also new.

Republishing (or retweeting) a particular thought is easy, fast, and magnifies a popular or interesting meme by thousands or millions of times – whether it’s true or not. Not possible in traditional media, so that’s new too.

Musk can’t alter any of these basic facts about digital platforms – he can only nibble around the edges of content moderation, performance, and identity management (bot control). Was that worth $44 billion and time away from his more important ventures? I think not, but then I’m not the richest guy in the world with a bad case of something on the spectrum.

The best case scenario is that Musk makes Twitter more efficient and then allows some trusted person(s) to manage it on his behalf. The worst case is that Twitter loses its position as a popular digital commons and the world moves on to other, newer, cooler platforms. Twitter joins Facebook as a has-been. My bet is on the latter outcome.

I showed up for the game last night with UK colors on, ready and enthused. Pizza, check. Good bottle of wine, check. DVR on, check. I showed up but unfortunately, the team didn’t. Even the game announcers noted how lackluster UK played in the first half. To be fair, Oscar T showed up and had another Big Game, but he was one versus five. Another crushing disappointment.

I’ve said enough, Here’s a great, thoughtful comment from A Sea of Blue that sums it up nicely:

Mark Few put on a clinic in regards to a modern basketball team (and program). Zags took highly efficient shots all game and let Kentucky shoot its long pull up 2’s. Few almost broke out into laughter when the subject of Toppin getting “hot” on semi-contested 18-footers. The entire point of their defense is to get the opponent to take such a shot. Few’s team is made up of skilled basketball players from 1-5. They have shooters at nearly every position. They space the court. They know how to move without the ball. They don’t depend on “plays” instead running actions that can be dynamic depending on how they are defended. The roster is intelligently built. Gonzaga minimizes their number of ball dominant slashers.

Cal has built a roster and program on ball dominant slashers. The dreaded HS scouting report “…great in the open floor and slashing to the basket. Shot and ball handling are a work in progress.” Kentucky’s rosters skill distribution and offense does not space the court. Notice how far under a screen Gonzaga went vs Wheeler. They would have let him shoot wide open 3’s all night. The Cats routinely have 2-4 players on the court that lack high level basketball skills; that do not play well off the ball; that do not stress a defense and therefore can not space the court; that can only score on drives/posts. The Cats do not run actions that open up shots for the few people that can shoot. (Sprinting 60 yards back and forth on a court and catching a pass while running full speed away from the basket does not help one’s shooting %.) Note how many NBA draft steals have come from Kentucky in the last 5-7 years (are better in pros than at UK); how much UK players shooting %’s go up when they are in the league. All the offensive problems also show up in defense as Kentucky routinely surrenders efficient shots and over relies on switching screens.

BTW whoever coined the phrase “NBA shot” for Toppin’s pull up contested 18 footers needs an irony award. Those are exactly the shots that NBA teams hate.

Back to politics. Recently elected Arizona House Republican says she will not do her job unless the 2022 election is redone. That’s 100% OK with me – you won’t do your job, so you’re fired. Swear in the runner-up and move on. There’s gotta be some recourse to childish, irresponsible politicians.

This is a terrible idea. With computers, you buy the hardware and software once, you’re entitled to the software upgrades. The auto industry is trying to change that. Asshats.

Here’s another potentially terrible idea. New Zealand considering lowering the voting age to 16. I don’t know about the rest of you, but at 16 I wasn’t interested in anything remotely resembling politics and real-world issues. I was the complete opposite of thoughtful and well-informed. Sports, music, sports, girls, sports – those were my priorities, in that order. Perhaps New Zealanders raise more fully-formed teenagers, but I doubt it. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

Terrible news today – Greg Bear is dead. He was one of my favorite science fiction authors, a great one. His novel Blood Music is one of my all-time favorites – I reread it every few years.

And he was only 71…

Big day today – UK basketball goes up against the #2 team in the nation, Gonzaga. The game is at a “neutral” site in Spokane, WA. Neutral, really? The game venue is in the same damn town as the college – it’s essentially a home game for them, just in a bigger arena. But after a little research, it makes sense. From Bleacher Report:

The series entails two games played in Spokane, two played inside of Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center, and two neutral site contests. A full breakdown of the series:

2022 – Spokane Arena
2023 – Rupp Arena
2024 – Seattle
2025 – Nashville
2026 – Rupp Arena
2027 – McCarthey Athletic Center

So next year we play them at Rupp. OK then.

And this is a day after UK football played the #1 team in the nation, Georgia, and came out of it pretty well. I figured we’d lose by 50, but the football Cats played tough and made it a close game.

In political news, I’d like to think that the appointment of a Special Counsel to oversee the two major criminal investigations involving Trump is a good thing. The guy who was appointed looks like a solid choice – looks more like a Special Forces dude than a judge, and has a great CV. Time will tell, but I see this as a positive development – I think Garland was smart to delegate this.

And here’s a great little website that chronicles the daily fuckups of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover. I have a bet with a friend who thinks Musk is just smarter than everyone and has a grand plan for Twitter, while I think Musk is not right in the head and headed for disaster. This website agrees with me. It’ll be interesting; pass the popcorn.

Starting the day off with some Tame Impala over the Airpods. So addictive, so cool, so calming. It’s hard to stop listening once you start. Puts a smile on my face every time. Kevin Parker is a gift.

The last few days have reminded me what it feels like to be healthy. It’s shockingly good. The previous months really knocked me out, and now that I seem to have recovered, it’s *wonderful*. An almost manic feeling.

I’ve reconnected with several good friends over the last 2-3 days, by phone and in person. Chuck, Art, T2, Rick – so good to catch up. Always makes me wonder why we wait so long.

Last evening I had a long conversation with one of them. Like many of my friends, he’s a fairly hard-core conservative. Voted for Trump and programmed by his media intake to hate Biden and crew. I’ve never let that get in the way of friendship. He asked me honestly how I could be so liberal, and we had a great chat about that. I told him I had 3-4 big issues that keep me on the liberal side of things:

• Any civilized, rich country should provide healthcare for all. No one should have to suffer when we can afford to care for them.
• Same for hunger and homelessness. It’s tragic and unnecessary at our stage of wealth and technology. I know, some people aren’t able to be regular citizens, but having them camp on our city streets isn’t the answer. Spend some real money on fixing that problem.
• I want clean air and clean water. The EPA makes that happen, and the fact that corporations don’t like the EPA’s regulation is just tough. Shut up and have a glass of clean, lead-free water.
• I want our tax dollars spent on useful things – roads, bridges, drug and food safety, airline safety, etc. Not BS cultural issues.

We found so much that we agree on. Term limits for all politicians and judges, a stronger and more rational border policy, small nukes as a replacement for fossil fuel energy, let the teachers be teachers and stay out of their business, “Defund the Police” is the stupidest and worst slogan ever, etc. It turns out that when you really sit down and talk through the details with reasonable people, there’s a lot to agree on.

He agreed with my big 3-4 issues, and said he wished the conservative party would just adopt those and we’d all be on the same side. Unlikely, but I’d be fine with that.

One tough area is that this friend is susceptible to believing conspiracy theories, and the right-wing media is great at creating them. The latest is that somehow the Biden administration used FTX (the now-defunct crypto exchange) to covertly funnel billions of taxpayer dollars to the Ukraine. I patiently took him through my thinking that (1) big conspiracies require hundreds of people to keep secrets, something that almost never works, (2) it’s much easier to believe that we simply are sending stockpiled weapons to them (truth) and those weapons will be replaced within next year’s 700 billion-ish Defense budget. Nothing covert about it. And we’ve done this for decades – we’ve sent weapons all over the globe in support of one faction or another, so why is this one so egregious?

I’m not sure I talked him off this particular ledge, but he listened. All in all, it was a great chat and I think he was satisfied that I’m not some crazed lefty, just a person who has some core beliefs that line up best with liberal leaders.

I’m really worried about Elon Musk. Actually, I’m worried about the impact on SpaceX. I’ve had high hopes for SpaceX’s progress in rocketry, but with Musk melting down over something as stupid as Twitter, his other more useful endeavors – SpaceX and Tesla – will inevitably suffer. His moves with Twitter over the last 72 hours are insane. These are not the actions of a rational person – they’re the actions of a megalomaniac who is way, way out over his skis.

Twitter can burn to the ground for all I care. Just don’t take SpaceX with it.

There's like 50 people stuck in a Twitter parking garage in Sunnyvale right now – the barrier arm won't go up because their badges are disabled. Someone in facilities management is supposedly bringing them a sawzall.

— Specifically Performing Steiner (@TweetOfSteiner) November 18, 2022

UK plays again tonight against a nobody opponent – we’re expected to win by 20-30 points. Woo hoo. Fortunately I’ve gained some perspective about the bad loss on Tuesday. There’s no real reason to think that this is The Team, or that this is Our Year. There are a lot of great teams out there, including right at home in the SEC – Tennessee and Arkansas, for example. Every game against a top 50 team is a dogfight. So I might as well get real about it and enjoy the season, whatever it brings.

In my ongoing quest to get back to an in-the-right-time-zone sleep cycle, I watched an old movie at 3am last night – Ruby in Paradise, starring a young Ashley Judd. It was a beautiful little story about a country girl trying to make it in the “big city” somewhere on the FL panhandle coast. The film’s pace is slow and thoughtful, just what you need at 3am. It brought back memories of how naive I was when I left Ashland, how everything was new and confusing. Judd did a wonderful job in the role, though she was probably able to draw from her life’s experience, as she grew up in small-town Ashland too. It doesn’t escape me that Ashley Judd is now one of the highest-profile UK hoops fans, so she’s a special person for me.

In other news, this year’s political drama is about over. Dems won the Senate, Reps won the House. Biden is still hitting on all cylinders. Dems won a lot of great governors’ seats. And Trump is running again (yawn). I’m glad Trump’s running, as it will remind everyone that it’s important to get out and vote. Reasonable people outnumber the MAGA crowd 60-40 if we’ll just show up.

I’ll keep trying to include some pictures from the Europe trip. Here’s a view of some cool and crooked Amsterdam buildings, taken from our little boat on the canal. They really are leaning that much. Our boat captain said that with Amsterdam being the gay capital of the world, even the buildings aren’t straight.

Welp, that didn’t take long. My dream of a perfect season, of UK rolling over competitors all the way to the big show, shattered in our first real game. Once again a Calipari team starts slow – both in the game and the season – and fails to make the crucial shots for the win. Victory was in our grasp at least twice, but we found a way to lose.

Call me jaded, but I’m fucking tired of losing at Indianapolis, of incompetent refs, and of Calipari teams that have inexplicable shooting slumps at the worst of times. I’m still bitter about last season’s NCAA Tourney loss to a mediocre team, in Indianapolis, a loss that ended our season and our cakewalk to the Final Four. JC gets paid twenty million-ish a year, and he needs to start earning that ridiculous compensation. MI State was ready to play tonight. Why weren’t we?

Rant almost over. Oscar Tcshiebwe, maybe the most likable human on the planet, showed up to play. Big time. He looked like the Player of the Year again and almost carried the team on his back to victory. But he had no reliable help.

I shouldn’t have hoped. Calipari teams never come together until mid-December or maybe even January. Everyone knows that, but I don’t have to like it.

We’ve only got two days before the next game, and four days until we play Gonzaga (!), so I hope the team does some soul-searching and gets their shit together. As for me, the thrill is temporarily gone. I’ll enjoy the next few games, but I’m not expecting much. I’ll set my high expectations aside until the January SEC run.

Home in Socal and feeling fine. So far.

I’ll have to say, arriving in LA was a rude awakening. After being in Norway, Amsterdam, Belgium and Southampton, the LA airport and area looked like a third world country. Crowded, dirty, disorganized – Schiphol was heaven compared to LAX. And the drive home through rush hour traffic was tough. I love the USA, but this BS about us being the best at everything…not even close.

Today I finally get to see a real, live UK hoops game. We play MI State, and this will be a real test, not a warm up game. Eight hours and counting.

<Written earlier today while in flight. Couldn’t post it via the weak in-flight KLM network connection.>

Ah, modern technology. Here I sit looking at a more or less real-time display of where our 787 Dreamliner (what a cheesy name) is, writing on a laptop and sipping good Portugal wine. We’re coming up on Nuuk Greenland now at 35,000 feet and 605 miles per hour, only 4265 miles from LA. Just around the corner.

KLM business class is pretty sweet. Great meals, good enough wine and a comfortable pod. Sit, recline, or stretch out and sleep. I know, I know, white Anglo-Saxon male privilege and all. So sue me, I didn’t choose my birth. I was very lucky in the “could have been born in that situation” lottery – I very seldom forget it. Traveling the world gives you a lot of perspective about how others live and how great we have it in the middle++ class in the US. I’m grateful for that, and I don’t know if I would have been strong enough to be the same person if born in a war zone, or in poverty, or handicapped in some serious way.

We’re about eight hours from landing, and I can’t wait. A movie or two ahead; probably a nap. Then just the final hurdle of driving home in LA traffic. It’ll take me a month to get rid of this jet lag – we’ve been back and forth between GMT and GMT+1 for two weeks now, and suddenly we’ll be in GMT-8. I expect to have quite a few days with random naps and some sleep struggles.

I think this will be my last cruise for a while. I have a lot of things to do that I don’t do well (or at all) on a cruise. See the grandsons, lose some weight, do some writing. There’s no excuse for not doing the latter two, but…gotta face reality. Plus, cruises suck up a *lot* of time before and after – a 7 day cruise becomes 10 days, etc. This one’s going to suck up about three weeks.

Time…it’s the ultimate equity play, the ultimate resource. There’s only so much of it, and you don’t know how much you have in the bank. I’m increasingly aware when I waste it, and very thankful that I occasionally have the opportunity to trade money for time. Time trumps money these days.

Seven hours and thirty minutes now. See you in Socal.

Or Brugge, as the Belgian spell it. More pictures later, but these are typical.

Last day on the ship – here we are in Belgium, a place we didn’t plan to visit. We’ll make the best of it with a good Belgian lunch (mussels and fries, no doubt) and a walk around Bruges. Then tonight we have a final dinner planned, a Nordic seafood feast in one of the ship’s pay-extra dining rooms.

Tomorrow (Sunday) it’s hustle off the ship at 7am, catch a flight to Amsterdam at 9am, then crash in Amsterdam for about 24 hours. On Monday we catch a 12 hour nonstop flight from Amsterdam to LAX. With a nine hour time difference, we arrive in LA about 3pm local, three hours after we left. Probably home by 630pm. The drive from LA to home will be dangerous, as I’ll be jet lagged and we’ll be right in the middle of LA rush hour (great planning, right?). The only car wrecks I’ve ever had were due to sleep deprivation, so…gonna have to be careful. Remember to drive on the right side this time. Maybe a ton of coffee.

The best things I can say about this trip are (1) I like Norway a lot. Could see visiting here again, maybe in the summer. (2) We got to see the Aurora, so that’s done. (3) I finally got the rest I needed after the summer/fall of funerals and COVID.

And OK, (4) Cunard is a pretty nice cruise line. Very formal, very staid, but well-run with great service. It’s octogenarian heaven. Not my cup of tea (pun intended, you have to see the afternoon tea hour to believe it), but it’s a bit of British calm in an otherwise crazy world.

Well, here we are in the North Sea, somewhere east of Iceland and about 20 miles west of the European mainland. In gale force winds (about 65 NM per hour!) and heavy seas. All we need now is an iceberg and we’ll make history. Rough cruising today, so it’ll be another day of reading, movies, too much buffet food, etc. I know, I know, I could be in the gym. Should be in the gym. I’ll think about it.

The weather is supposed to clear and be pleasant by the time we arrive In Bruges (see what I did there?) in about 40 hours. We’re sorry to have missed the last two Norway stops – I realize I may not get back here again. Though if I do, it will be an airline ride into one of the larger cities, *not* by sea. This Trondheim image below is part of the reason – just a beautiful place. As I mentioned, water, water everywhere. This is a “suburb” a few blocks away from the center of town.

The Trondheim cathedral (below) is yet another reason. Built in the years from AD 800-1200, and refurbished quite a bit in the recent century, it’s beautiful. Not as large as some, but still awe inspiring. What was it about Christianity that inspired people to spend decades, their entire lives, building such fantastic buildings? Whatever the reason, I’m glad they did.

I would post more pictures but each one takes quite a while to upload to WordPress over my slow, unreliable Internet connection (hello there, 1999). So that’ll have to wait. There’s likely a way to reduce the picture size and resolution so that it goes quickly, but I’ve never needed that before and don’t feel like mucking about with it now.

Well, a lot of things changed today. We had a great walkabout in Trondheim, then we returned to the ship to learn that (1), the US elections went better than expected (if you’re a D), and (2), we’re not going to Stavanger and Aleslund as planned. There’s rough weather and rough seas for the next 48 hours in the North Sea, so our capitain decided to skip those stops. Instead, we’ll be at sea for two nights and then have a make-up stop in Bruges, Belgium. Go figure.

Bruges. Turns out that nephew Corey just visited there and loved it. So we’ll go and have some mussels, frites, some Belgian beer and chocolate. Could be worse.

I will say that Trondheim was a lovely city. Water everywhere. Electric vehicles everywhere. Bikes, traditional and e-variety, everywhere. Just a great feel about the place. We visited the city center and a part of the old town across a river. Lots of walking; very enjoyable.

On the election, I just hope Warnock wins in GA. That will wrap it up nicely.

It’s Election Day, or more precisely it’s November 8^th here in the Arctic, the day that will be Election Day in about six hours in the eastern US, and nine hours from now in the western US. All told it will be at least twelve hours before I can get any reasonable news about the elections. Frustrating, that.

No one really seems to know how things will turn out – pollsters and prognosticators don’t seem to have a clue. From my POV, we have two opposing forces. One, the expected push from reasonable people (mostly female) who get out and vote D because they want Roe restored in some way. And two, the relentless rise of the clueless and fascist Trumpers, whose only goal seems to be autocracy. Which force will prevail? That’s the morbid drama unfolding over the next 24 hours.

While we’re at sea we can watch news and see how things unfold, but once we dock all the news and sports channels are blocked by some god-forsaken contractual requirement of the satellite service. For some reason the satellite service (or the content provider) thinks it’s to their advantage to not allow cruise ship occupants to view their content while in port. I can’t imagine why, but the net of it is that we must fall back to cellular-provider Internet links for any information while in port. Madness.

Our next stop is tomorrow morning in Trondheim. We don’t have any excursions there, so it will just be a walkabout in the city. I haven’t done any research about the place, so it will all be a surprise. My paper-thin plan will be to find the inevitable fish market at the docks and have a good seafood meal there. Around the world in 80 meals, I suppose.

Now that we’ve accomplished the main objective of this trip, the rest is simply resting, observing, and hopefully enjoying the 3-4 stops remaining before we launch on KLM from Amsterdam to LA. Shipboard life for me is not much different from home life – just a smaller room and an ever-changing view out the window. While there are allegedly lots of things to do onboard, none of them really interest me. Call me a dullard, but reading, writing, watching movies, the occasional walk and a good meal are what I do. I miss the rest of the family, but I’ll see them at voyage’s end, or shortly after. But at this moment I’m quite sure that longer cruises are not for me.

One saving grace is that I’ve discovered a new (to me) author who writes the kind of thing I love to read – Neal Asher, who writes long-winded space operas, complete with detailed world building and scenes spanning galaxies. I realized while reading his second Agent Ian Cormac book that he writes very much like Ian M. Banks, and that’s heavy praise. He’s not as erudite as Banks, but the basic ideas and world building are the same. I love the idea of a post-scarcity economy spanning star systems, and what all there is to discover “out there”. With Banks gone, people like Asher can fill the gap and give us a little glimpse of what that world(s) could be like.

Yesterday we crossed the Arctic Circle, the farthest north I’ve been on Earth’s surface. That’s a bit of a milestone. Today we’re approaching Tromso, and our Aurora watch begins in earnest tonight. We’re far enough north that on any night, we may see the Lights. And the nights are long – here in late fall/early winter, at this latitude the nights are 16+ hours long. Working against us is the weather – at the moment we’re completely socked in with clouds, rain and fog. We have three days for that to change.

Lately I missed a UK football game and (I think) another UK exhibition basketball game. And the World Series, again. I hear it’s a good one. But I got to see a little European League women’s rugby and some Euro football (soccer). The rugby was fascinating. None of this crossed my mind when I booked this trip 18 months ago. It was all about the Lights, and I suppose it still is.

I’m anxious to watch the US election results in 2-3 days (exact times escape me at the moment). It will be weird watching the fate of the US decided while far away, on a ship populated by Brits and a smattering of other nationalities, including Americans. Seeing everyone here reminds me that the world is a big place, not simply America, and while our political business is a big deal, it’s not the whole deal.

The sleepless nights (without Internet for a distraction) are doing strange things to my head. I’m getting tons of rest, reading a book every 24 hours, but only weird little bits of sleep here and there. I find myself in seriously deep introspection through the night and even the day. Not quite sure if this is good or bad, but it sure has triggered some serious self-examination.

On a completely separate note, while Cunard seems genuinely dedicated to quality, finding a good bottle of wine here is an adventure. Nothing good on the room service menu. Nothing good from any of the bars. All the house red wines are shit (I can’t say for the whites; I really haven’t tried them). There are some good bottles to be had in the formal restaurants, but you have to work at it. I ordered a 2015 Du Pape and got a 2020 bottle (sent back). We did find a nice 2015 Gigondas/Rhone GSM at a decent price last night – good or good+, but still not great. I have seen some *very* big money bottles on display (a 78 Petrus (!!), several Screaming Eagles, some old Bordeaux), but I can’t quite pull the trigger on more than $1000 for a bottle. Or in a couple of those examples, more than $5000. I enjoy great wine, but I’m not stupid.

I still haven’t downloaded/reviewed my pictures from Bergen and the fjords. I’m worried that my Fuji’s pictures will be noticeably worse than those from K’s new iPhone 14. Based on what I’ve seen so far, that’s a real possibility. Apple’s newest in-phone image processing is spectacular. In the more traditional case, I have to take a good photo with mostly correct settings, then do post-processing to perform the light and color enhancement that Apple does automatically.

We spent the day in and around Bergen, Norway. Bergen is the southernmost large city on the west shore of Norway, with a population of around 300,000. It’s a beautiful city – very walkable with tons of restaurants, bars/pubs, and the fish market near where we walked. We only had a couple of hours to explore, and it looks like a place you could spend a week enjoying the local sights and cuisine. The weather was cool and a little rainy, which we’re told is the norm. It’s kind of the anti-Socal.

We took a smaller boat up one of the fjords, and it was an excellent trip. Waterfalls everywhere – I need to post some of the pictures once I move them from the camera to the laptop. Norway is beautiful even on a gloomy day, and I can only imagine it on the day or two it gets sunny each year.

Next it’s on to Tromso, for our three day attempt to see the Aurora Borealis. Once again, a helluva lot of trouble to see some charged particles interact with the Earth’s magnetic fields. Fingers crossed.

Still chugging our northward toward Bergen, Norway. In Bergen we take a smaller boat on a half-day fjord journey.

Last night’s dilemma had a fortunate outcome. I relented and dressed as well as I could, given my plebian wardrobe. K agreed to eat in a smaller, quieter venue as opposed to the grand ballroom Gatsby crowd. We ended up having one of the best meals in memory – everything was cooked to perfection and excellent, service was great, and I appreciated the much smaller crowd. All’s well that ends well.

We took in one of the stage shows and then just wandered about gawking.

Today my plan is to post up in one of the posh bars, a comfortable chair with an ocean view, and simply read and write.

Twenty four hours aboard the Queen Mary 2, and we’re slowly heading north just south and east of England. We cruised by the white cliffs of Dover a couple of hours ago, and they were clear and sharp from a few miles offshore. Our first real sight to see.

We were supposed to leave Southampton at 5pm yesterday, but didn’t leave until midnight due to rough seas. The Captain says we’ll still get to our first port, Bergen, on time, making a steady 15 knots through moderately rough seas. Good trick, that.

The QM2 has a decidedly different vibe than the other 3-4 cruise ships I’ve been on. Less crowded, less frantic, much more comfortable. And the two of us definitely bring the average age down a few years. I like it a lot, though I despise the expectation that one will dress up (suits, tuxes and black tie) many nights for the sit-down dinners. I told K before we left that I wasn’t doing that, and…we’re negotiating. Having not brought formal wear at all, it’s more about negotiating how often I’m going to subject myself to being the poorly dressed unsophisticate in the crowd.

In my defense I dressed up every day for almost 40 years to go to work, and I hated it every time. Forty. Years. Now that I’m retired, I have a closet full of dressy clothes that (a) I don’t want to wear and (b) no longer fit, some by an uncomfortable amount. So my curmudgeonly attitude has a basis. K is taken by the whole Downton Abbey aspect of the evenings, and while I understand her desire, I don’t share it.

Internet service is very spotty – it works for a bit and then simply doesn’t. You do something else and try again later. Rather than spend $20/day for all 13 days, I plan to just sign up every other day or so. We’ll see how that works – I’m very addicted to having Internet information at my fingertips.