2022. Whoever owns 2022 better have a thick skin, because the review is going to be brutal.

• 2022 is the year that the “post-pandemic” housing market peaked and then crashed. A bad roller coaster ride.
• It’s the year that inflation rose to 40 year highs and sent more shocks through financial markets. Tough year to be a retired investor.
• Another ugly, sad year (so far) for Kentucky basketball. Coach Calipari has gone from legend to bum.
• 2022 was the year that we got stuck in the Xmas travel nightmare. We were luckier than most, as we got stuck in a place I like and in a cozy home. But hundreds of thousands missed their holiday, slept in airports, lost their luggage, and just generally got buried in a pile of suck.
• Our smallest Thanksgiving dinner ever. Was pretty sad.
• The year that Elon Musk decided to destroy my investment in Tesla by mucking about with the cesspool called Twitter. And SpaceX’s prospects are dimmed by the same. Musk has turned out to be a childish idiot.
• The year that my metabolism decided I could use a lot more fat around my midsection. Metabolism and I are going to have a frank discussion about that.
• 2022 was the year that I caught COVID at least once (verified by test), probably twice.
• The year that Dad died.
• And stepmother Phyllis died.
• The year that China found out the hard way that you can’t beat a virus with long-term population isolation. A billion people are now paying the price.

There were a few bright spots.

• We got our water problems fixed in our Socal well system.
• My buddy Jon and I won our flight again in his club tournament.
• Our house didn’t burn down in a wildfire.
• The democrats did pretty damn well in midterm elections.
• We saw the Northern Lights.
• I attended a fun writers conference in Louisville.
• We had a good trip to Cabo.

So it wasn’t all bad, but on balance…not a great year. I’m ready for a reset in 2023.

The Kentucky game tonight was brutal. A 20 point loss that should have been +/- 5 points. This team isn’t what I hoped it would be, so the rest of the season is about enjoying the bright spots and suffering through the rest. Love the players, hate the losses.

I’m officially off the Calipari fan train. With this much talent, we should have a better team. Hold the $30-50M per year leader accountable. Sorry JC, time for the next coach.

Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends.

We were scheduled to leave Louisville this morning on Spirit Airlines at 8am. Just before midnight, we received notice that our flight had been cancelled (I was asleep, so didn’t read it until 5am). They Groundhog Dayed us after all.

After a few seconds of despair, I got busy and found us a flight on United that, at least as of 6am, is scheduled to leave at 9am and head west to San Diego via Denver. The Denver part is a calculated risk. We could easily get stranded in Denver, but…there are more service options there than at Louisville.

I know this is an unusual circumstance, but my faith in air travel is shaken. What used to be reliable service now isn’t. So my plans to have a dual life, homes east and west, suddenly seems unwise. If I owned any airline stocks, I’d sell them or short them ASAP.

Anyway, wish us luck. Five straight cancellations – that’s gotta be a record.

***

Update – it’s a no go on a flight leaving today. I’ve now booked something for the 31st – the airline crunch should settle out by then. Time for us to settle in and do what we can to enjoy our next few days here.

Just read about Flipper Zero. Wow, I expect this device to wreak some havoc. I may just get one to play around and see how vulnerable we actually are to ubiquitous, invisible information being beamed around us. Though to get one I may have to pay Amazon double the retail rate – the OEM company is sold out.

Today is just a relax and bide your time day. We plan to have lunch with my brother and go see the kids later, before we try to fly west one more time tomorrow morning. Air travel at the holidays, and this holiday/weather shitstorm in particular, is pretty awful. I’m going back to my old rules about flying at the holidays – just don’t.

I feel so bad for all the families who got stuck yesterday (and the day before, and the day before that) when flights cancelled and they had no rental car, no flight onward at any price, and definitely no second home to fall back to. We had it easy in comparison.

Looking westward, it’s 80+ degrees and sunny today at our CA home. But as we arrive tomorrow, the temperature will drop about 20 degrees and then we get a few days of cold rain. Is it us – what did we do to piss off the weather gods? I have mixed feelings about that forecast – one one hand, I was looking forward to a little heat. On the other, rain is the best thing that can happen in Socal. And 60 degrees is a helluva lot warmer than what we’ve experienced the past week.

With the wintery weather here (that’s an understatement), I haven’t even broken out my Fuji camera, after hauling it and a couple of lenses here, I know I’ve missed opportunities for some dramatic B&W shots of the snow and ice, but I haven’t been up to it. One more reason that I might just sell the expensive gear and rely on an iPhone 14 with its very solid camera. It might be time to face it (shades of Tame Impala), I’ll never be Ansel Adams.

I have to admit, I’ve been guilty of conflicting goals these last few days. On one hand, I want to be with the grandkids. On the other hand, the desire to get back to our CA home. We got blocked again today from flying westward, and given that I have been in goal achievement mode, that felt bad. Once I get focused on a goal, I’m blind to all other outcomes.

But the silver lining showed up this afternoon and evening. With today’s abrupt flight cancellation, we were “forced” to spend the day here in KY. We went over to the kids’ house and had a great afternoon/evening with the grandkids, the other grandparents, and of course E&G. It was better than anything we had waiting for us on the Left Coast. Good food, good company, the grandkids, and most of all family, albeit an extended one. My daughter and son-in-law are wiser than us, and we benefited from their tradition of “come one, come all” on Xmas Day. I enjoyed the evening more than I can express.

Having distributed families is hard. It’s not natural, and we’re all figuring out what it means and what it can be in our lives. Divorce, moving away from the childhood home, jobs, children, and marriages all shape your life in ways you never expected – this is all new, in a sociological sense. But today I experienced the best of that. It turned out to be a Merry Xmas, indeed. Ho ho ho, after all.

Welp, it’s 8pm Xmas Eve and we’re still in Louisville. I have a serious bone to pick with Southwest Air. Our Plan B C D E flight leaves at 8am tomorrow on another airline. At least that’s the plan. Ho f’ing ho.

***

Update, Xmas morning, 530am. In theory we leave on Spirit Airlines at 8am today. After some consideration, I think Spirit may be the new Southwest, with a few twists. At least they seem to have good service to and from Louisville, which SW no longer does. In the spirit of this being a travel blog, I’ll post more detailed results once we experience Spirit’s service.

***

Update, still Xmas morning. Our 8am flight hasn’t boarded or left as of 10am – apparently, they’re one flight attendant short. Someone probably couldn’t get permission for the holiday off and just called in sick. So 135 of us are hanging out in the Louisville airport terminal, waiting for the latest lie about leaving. There’s not a lot of holiday cheer in the waiting area. I’m just tired of the multi-day shitshow of scheduling, cancellations and futile waiting. And just tired, period.

***

Final update on this little tragedy. Spirit cancelled our flight at 1030am, leaving a planeful of people upset. I immediately got online and rebooked us for the same itinerary two days from now. There’s no guarantee that we won’t Groundhog Day again on Tuesday, but…gotta try. Eventually, we’ll get somewhere. Meantime, I have an unhappy fellow traveler trying to accept the inevitable. Sometimes that’s tough.

Aaaand it’s Xmas Eve, the day after Festivus. Five hours to flight time and it still looks like we’ll leave Louisville today. Our aircraft is in flight, on its way from LA to Chicago. From Chicago it comes to Louisville, and then heads back west to Phoenix. With us aboard. The transition in Chicago is the most likely point of failure, so we’ll see. It’ll be fine either way.

Meanwhile it’s time to clean up, do laundry, get rid of perishables in the fridge, repack, set the thermostats appropriately, fuel up the car and ourselves, and take one last drive in the crunchy snow. I’ve gotten to be an expert in the “buttoning up the house” checklist. Maybe I should do a TED talk on that.

Back in Socal I plan on playing a lot of golf. Now that I’m getting in better shape, I’ll walk the courses whenever possible. Cardio plus fun, that’s the ticket.

It’s too early for the usual list of New Year’s resolutions and subsequent failures, but I have started thinking about it. How can you not think about it when you’re aware that you don’t have that much time left, big picture. Every day I read about some 60 year old celebrity who ran out of runway, died “way too soon”. It’s depressing and energizing at the same time. A bit like playing golf.

Well, after spending a great morning with the kids (picture below), we burned an entire afternoon and went to see Avatar, The Way of Water. In a nutshell, great effects, but *exactly* the same movie as before, full of white man’s guilt. A very obvious, heavy-handed screed against colonialism, industrialism, technology, etc. Nature good, mankind bad. Three hours of that drivel, and I’m ready to become a conservative.

In general it was not a good movie. Glad we saw it on the big giant screen, but I’ll never see it again.

Being out and about today in the crunchy snow was a bit of an adventure. All my years of snowtime driving in Akron OH came back to me, and I navigated the roads pretty easily. Just have to be slow and cautious, plus be aware of the physics of what’s going on between your wheels and the snow.

It’s a little chilly this morning.

So far we still have power and no pipes frozen. Hard to believe it was a balmy 45 degrees yesterday. So far SW has not cancelled our Xmas Eve trip…we probably won’t know about that until about 24 hours from now. I still think the nonstop to PHX is a good bet.

Comparing KY’s weather snapshot to today’s report from Socal, below. Amazing – hard to believe we’re in the same country. All of a sudden I’m a little nostalgic for our CA home.

***

Here’s some not-so-common good sense about passwords that I wish website designers would read and understand.

***

There’s a lot of political news this week, but I can’t get too worked up about any of it. I did watch BBC news last night instead of the shite that US networks call news, and it was refreshing. No breathless drama, no drug commercials – just factual video and stories from around the world.

***

I was just elected to the Board of Directors for San Diego Health Connect. That should be interesting, and I’m looking forward to doing what I can to help them grow.

The closer we get to the Arctic storm tonight, the less it feels like an adventure – more like an opportunity to test survival skills. This area just isn’t prepared for negative 30ish wind chill. The combo of below zero temps and wind gusts at 40 mph could be devastating – lots of tree falls and power line problems. The nightmare scenario is an extended power outage. In close second are broken pipes, cars that won’t start, and roads filled with wrecked cars due to ice.

We tried to bug out today, but Southwest wasn’t up to the task. They rebooked us for 610am Friday through Chicago, and there’s no way in hell I’m getting on that flight, even if it leaves Louisville. Another worst case scenario is being stranded in Chicago airport with another million angry travelers. Nope, just nope. I’ll cancel that reservation if SW doesn’t cancel the flight, which I think is likely. So our last option is a reservation we have for the 24th through Phoenix. My hope (not a good strategy) is that there will be an aircraft available by Saturday afternoon, and Phoenix is a safe destination, untouched by the Arctic storm. We’ll see.

So, in the meantime, faucets will be on drip and flashlights at the ready. Communication devices all charging up. Some meals ready for Friday in case no one can drive on the roads. And hoping that LGE has a great field service organization.

Also really, really hope that the homeless folks in Louisville find some shelter. I know of one large homeless encampment along the river west of the city. Without shelter, tonight and tomorrow will be deadly. In San Diego I know my 211 team would be mobilizing to help in a situation like this – I wonder if they have the same kind of service organization here?

This year I broke my “never travel around the holidays” rule. And now we’re paying for it.

Because of the big cold wave / storm coming in, we decided to be smart and get out of Dodge early – I changed our flight from the 24th to the 22nd. Then SW cancelled our flight on the 22nd, no explanation. So I’ve rebooked on the 24th, though I’m fairly certain that flights that day will be impacted or cancelled. My best guess is that we’ll be here 4-5 days past Christmas, as it’ll take a while for the air travel system to recover from 2-3 days of flight cancellations across the country. I’m OK with it – just more time with the kids here in Louisville – but K, who hasn’t been well, wanted to get back west. Can’t win.

I’ve been playing with chatGPT, a machine-learning text model that converses with people quite well. It passes the Turing Test, from my POV.

Here’s an example.

Me: Please write a haiku poem about bacon.

chatGPT: Bacon sizzles bright,

Savory and salty delight

Breakfast’s shining star.

Yikes! It will gladly chat with you about anything, and it has rather comprehensive world knowledge up to 2021. The software isn’t connected to the Internet, but it’s only a matter of time. chatGPT is an impressive piece of work, and opens up huge new possibilities in human-to-machine interfaces. And ugly possibilities in terms of chatGPT-powered bots flooding any social media site with whatever propaganda its masters want, masked by a very human-like interaction model.

Machines that talk with us in a natural way, that never forget, and that have access to all the world’s knowledge. Dream or nightmare; friend or foe? Maybe all of the above.

Words of wisdom:

“As you grow older, your Christmas list gets smaller and the things you really want for the holidays can’t be bought.” – Anonymous

My workout today really kicked my butt. The trainer proves over and over why I haven’t gotten results on my own – unless you’re sweating and kinda gasping for air, you’re not really making progress. On my own I stop waaaay before that point.

Tonight’s dinner with the kids is at Square Cut Pizza, whose menu looks more like high-end Italian cuisine than a pizza joint. I do love the food scene in Louisville. Hence the need for the workout schedule.

This CNN story tracks with my own experience of Amsterdam this year. The city government think it needs to make some changes, and I agree. The touristy area has a distinctly creepy vibe – sex, drugs, and no rock ‘n roll. Litter everywhere, guys openly pissing on streets – it’s a little too crude for my tastes. I wish them luck in cleaning up.

***

Today is a workout day with my trainer (via Zoom). I find myself dreading it – I hope for the day when I *want* to work out. I think that will be the tipping point. In my younger days, I enjoyed strenuous exercise. That’s a virtuous cycle, and I want to find it again. When did I get so lazy?

***

I’m sorry I missed the live TV coverage of the Jan 6th Committee making criminal referrals on DJT. Now it’s up to the DoJ to indict. They probably won’t but one can always hope. Best we might expect is that DJT will have to spend the entire $250M-ish he’s raised from donations by idiots on lawyers.

***

My rental car crapped out last night, so I found myself stranded on Goss Avenue in Germantown. Thankfully, AAA dispatched someone to restart the car quickly, so I trundled off to the airport to trade vehicles. We take so much for granted in the modern world – the car will (almost) always start, your phone will work, etc. Standing in the cold waiting for the AAA guy was a reminder to be prepared for the day when things break. Though I could have just walked into Hauck’s across the street and had a beer.

***

UK plays Florida A&M tomorrow and I’m not really looking forward to it. Nothing much to win and everything to lose. We *should* beat them, and if we don’t it will be a disaster. This is how it goes when the team consistently disappoints – you start to expect the worst.

I think it’s interesting that the conservative crowd’s shiny new social media/news platform is called “Truth”. The old Soviet Union’s official newspaper was called “Pravda”, which is Russian for “Truth”. Hmmm….

***

The winter solstice this week will usher in a few days of very cold weather here in Louisville. It’s projected to be around zero Fahrenheit a night or two. I’m glad we’re here to experience it – when we return to the Left Coast, it will seem absolutely balmy in comparison.

***

I read recently that Yellowstone has become noting more than a giant 60 minute beef industry commercial. After watching last night’s new episode, I would say that’s true. But I don’t care – the show is entertaining, the scenery beautiful, and the characters are a lot of fun. Beth is my favorite psycho.

***

How many computers are in your computer? This is a cool little essay that details how my profession has built system upon system over the years. The complexity is amazing.

***

Welp, at least I lived long enough to see the worst play in NFL history. That’s something.

WORST PLAY IN NFL HISTORY LMAO pic.twitter.com/OskGw9qW6C

— RedditCFB (@RedditCFB) December 19, 2022

I could go on and on about last night’s loss to UCLA, but I won’t. Ugly game, ugly result. JC is not the coach I thought he was. I’ll never give up on the team, but I’m ready to give up on the coach.

My friend Robert over at Blue Heron Blast has a good take on the idiotic Reparations Task Force in California. I know that being black in much of America is tough, tougher and unjust, but this isn’t the answer.

***

I probably won’t watch Barbie, but wow, what a great movie trailer! Kubrick rocks.

***

Whaliens. Who knew?

***

Assassination Coordinates. It really is a great book/movie title.

This cartoon just about sums up US politics lately – Biden has been quite the consequential President after two years. It’s driving the conservative crowd crazy (er).

I’ve always enjoyed Luckovich’s comics.

Dinner last night at The Pine Room was excellent, though a little late for my tastes – we ate at about 830pm. Everything we tried was tasty and each had a slight twist that made the dish memorable. Salty bread with bourbon flavored dipping sauce, cauliflower with a nutty, crunchy coating, a little cherry pie in a ramekin that was so, so good. My main course was flank steak, cooked perfectly. And their service was outstanding. We’ll return for another Pine Room experience.

***

Six hours until the UK-UCLA game. We win, our trajectory looks strong. We lose, and it’s looking like another year of “we should’ve done better”. Go Cats, exceed expectations!

***

From USA Today, Covid isn’t finished with us by a long shot. China is about to melt down.

Experts predict hundreds of millions of infections and as many as 1.5 million to 2 million deaths.
“I think China is going to blow in the next six to 12 weeks,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, in a Thursday webinar. “Instead of falling off a 5-foot cliff, we’re going to watch them fall off a 1,000-foot cliff.”
A raging epidemic in China could be bad news for controlling the virus in the U.S., he and other experts said, because travelers will arrive sick and the chances of mutation increase anytime a virus infects a lot of people.

That will impact the US economy too, as our supply chain is deeply entwined with China. Turns out the Chinese zero-Covid lockdowns just delayed the inevitable outcome of the virus and arguably made the results worse for everyone. Nice job, guys.

I thought I would have a hard time finding the latest highly-touted bourbon, Hidden Barn. Nope, turns out they had a bottle right across the street at my local alcohol pusher, The Wine Rack. First taste this afternoon, and it’s very, very good. Right up there with Noah’s Mill or Blanton’s. Ask and ye shall receive.

TGIF. After two full days here in Louisville, I’m finally (mostly) rid of jet lag. Wednesday was miserable – we arrived very late, stayed up late, then struggled all day with sleep deprivation. Tame Impala’s It Might Be Time comes to mind:

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

Yeah, it might be time. But I’m enjoying the weather here. Some rain, some good honest cold. Today we go halfway to eastern KY to visit an old family friend, then return for what should be a nice dinner at The Pine Room. Tomorrow’s a big day, with my brothers and me getting together for UK versus UCLA – a big game any year, and crucial this year. The Cats need to prove themselves to everyone.

Meanwhile, we’ve had a couple of great evenings with these guys. Worth it all.

Whole lotta news today. Nuclear fusion progress, Mark Meadows is revealed as a treasonous snake, big storms across the US, SBF gets arrested, MTG also a treasonous snake, the stock market is way up (yay!), and Elon Musk continues to ruin his brand. But all of that is set aside on a personal level – today we fly back to Louisville. We’ve outsourced our time today to Southwest – cattle car, here we come.

As much as I hate wearing them, I’ll probably wear a mask on the plane today. The triple-demic isn’t life threatening the way Covid was back in 2020, but getting another case of any virus is damn inconvenient. I prefer to not spend 4-5 days lying around feeling bad. So to reduce that chance, it’ll be masks on the plane.

We’re fortunate today to have a long first flight, from San Diego to Chicago. We’ll fly right over the storm somewhere around the Rockies. A day or two later and Chicago is likely to be a bad bet, but we should be fine today.

It looks like it’ll be colder in KY than first expected, so in addition to the mask I’ll be dragging along The Big Coat. It was good enough for Norway, so it should work in Louisville.

Our insurance saga has a happy ending – we’ll end up paying $1000 less next year for better coverage. So Travelers did us a favor by telling us to bugger off. I’ll be sure to tell all my friends how they did us a solid.

I like my mornings, so much so that I’m willing to forgo some big paydays in 2023. The corporate world wants to own your time starting at 8am, certainly no later than 9am. And increasingly it wants you to be in an in-person meeting somewhere, meaning that I would have to be showered, properly dressed, and on the road by 7am. My ritual of reading about the world and then commenting on it via this blog would have to end, or shift to a 5am start time. That’s a big sacrifice. The writing part of my morning is like meditation – it’s very good for me. So I’ve begun the process of extricating myself from prospective employer expectations. Call it an early New Year’s resolution.

***

We finally got some rain here in Socal, about one inch in the last 24 hours. That’s a big relief – the plants love it, wildfires hate it, and it makes living here seem a little less deserty for a while. A one inch rainfall in KY isn’t news, but here it’s a headline above the fold.

***

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore Labs’ Nuclear Ignition Facility, or NIF, have announced a fusion event with net energy gain for a few nanoseconds. That’s exciting news, but a long way away from sustained power source. I’ve been to the NIF – it’s impressive in both scale and complexity. Controlled, sustained nuclear fusion is a Holy Grail of science, one that I don’t expect to be achieved in my lifetime, or even the next generation.

***

When I get to KY later this week I’ll be on the hunt for this bourbon. Hidden Barn.

What a brilliant idea. Italian cooks are resurrecting the ancient method of slow cooking using wool-insulated boxes. Saves a ton of energy and produces superior results. The linked NPR article on this is great reading.

***

A local park, reaching from the coast at Oceanside to our little area (Bonsall/Fallbrook), is taking shape slowly. This would be a great addition for residents all along Route 76. Louisville would get it done in a year or two, but in CA it’s likely to take a decade. I hope they finish while I’m alive.

***

Musk continues to melt down. Elon Musk is selling Twitter HQ’s espresso machines, Eames chairs, and sculptures in a giant auction. Sure, he’s sending a message about entitlement, but doesn’t he have anything better to worry about? The dude needs his meds.

***

This is fascinating stuff. Dark matter, the fabric of space-time. Gravity is still our most mysterious force, and the idea that dark matter only affects (creates?) gravity and therefore is undetectable by normal means, is really interesting. It explains a lot.

***

In less esoteric news, some dude hit a driver (!!) onto the 7th green at Pebble, a 100 yard hole, because of 50mph winds. I’ve birdied that hole with a wedge. Golf is a funny game.

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In other golf news, last night’s “The Match” was a snoozer. Cool idea, but not that entertaining.

***

Finally, it was supposed to be raining like hell this morning. As usual, it isn’t. Gloomy, yes. Windy, yes. Rainy….nope.

Slow day today, probably a slow weekend. UK hoops this morning, then The Match (golf) on TV this afternoon. Rain tomorrow. I’ll get some exercise in there somewhere.

It appears we’ve found an option for our homeowner’s policy – we have a quote from another carrier for about $16K less than Traveler’s. Basically what we’ve paid the last three years. So Traveler’s, we’re moving on.

And we get to Louisville for a nice long visit next week. Grandsons, family members, friends, and some real weather. Can’t wait.

I agree with this, 100%. Writing is magic.

***

Presiding over last night’s final 211SD board meeting (final for me) and the subsequent farewell party has left me restless. Unsettled. This is a chapter of my life that I didn’t want to end. I *am* joining another nonprofit board – San Diego Health Connect – and I’m sure I’ll be able to contribute there. But it won’t be 211. I’m sure I’ll feel better about it all in a day or two, but for now…unsettled.

***

There’s some real wisdom in this short essay. Ideas That Changed My Life. The one about tribes is so true; a realization I had years ago.

***

OK, I promise to never again flush the toilet with the lid up. Ugh.

***

Trying to put a little life into the blog, I’ll continue to publish some of my favorite pictures of the past year.

Here is the masterful, the one and only Leo Kottke playing live at The Belly Up in late July, where we had ringside seats. It was a great little show that night. I had to sneak to take this picture, and it turned out pretty nice.

Here’s a peaceful, meandering canal in Bruge, just a couple of hundred yards from the central train station. What a beautiful city!

And my favorite little family, somewhere in a state park.

Well, well, well. It turns out that just over half of Georgia, by a tiny percent, isn’t nuts. Congratulations Senator Warnock! But it does boggle the mind that about 1.7M people voted for Walker. It might make sense, when you remember that half of the population is below the median IQ. I know, that’s harsh and/or elitist, but…calling it like I see it. Why else would you vote for a party that actively works against your interests? A party that from my POV is actively evil.

***

Indonesia just passed laws banning sex outside of marriage. That includes for touristy places like Bali. I’m sure that’ll work out just fine for everyone.

***

Trump had a very bad week, legally and politically. His company, the Trump Crime Family Trump Organization, was found guilty of felony fraud. Merry Christmas, and here’s to hoping they go after the kingpin next.

***

Today I go to my last board meeting as Chairman of 211 San Diego. Definitely bittersweet, but time to move on. It’s been great being part of an organization that provides so much help to those who need it the most. Joining 211’s board a decade ago helped me reconnect with San Diego after years of consulting travel, made it feel more like home.

***

Just over a year ago we were in Cabo for what turned out to be a great December trip. Here are a couple of good pictures from that trip.

First, Fishing in Paradise.

Next, a traditional Mexican dance team.

I could have framed it better, but I like the light.

Oh shit. I’m doomed.

Pizza, hot dogs, sausages, burgers, french fries, sodas, cookies, cakes, candy, doughnuts and ice cream…all on the list of Foods That Lead to Dementia. (They didn’t list potato chips or Tater Tots, but I’m sure that was just an oversight.) I can give up all the sweet stuff, no problem. But pizza, burgers and fries? Just start digging the hole now, and make it a big one.

***

We had a real shitshow at the house yesterday. Power outage, trespassers, neighborly conflict…quite the drama.

It all started with a series of planned outage notices we got from my old employer, SDGE. The utility had notified us, several times, of a planned 8 hour outage on 12/5 for neighborhood repairs. My plan was to get to a local coffee shop for meetings and wifi.

SDGE then notified us at 8am, by email, that there would be no outage. Outage cancelled, so I changed my plans accordingly.

Then at 9am our power went off. I went outside and saw about 15 SDGE and contractor trucks, parked on our road and in our extended driveway. At about that same time, a small unrelated fleet of plumbing and irrigation trucks showed up and set up to begin digging trenches, ON OUR PROPERTY.

Turns out a neighbor up the hill is/was installing new water service to his property, and took it upon himself to authorize the contractor to dig on our property. Without ever discussing it with us. Or with no thought that scheduling a major infrastructure upgrade on the same day, in the exact same place, as a big utility project might be a problem. That didn’t go over well, once I realized what was going on.

It was quite a morning. Our power was restored ahead of schedule. The negotiations with the clueless neighbor are ongoing.

***

Today is stand up and be counted day for Georgia voters. Let’s hope they’re not all crazy.

Today we get the pleasure of dealing with an eight hour power outage, courtesy of my old employer SDG&E. I know, the grid needs maintenance, but a planned eight hour outage is a big one. Causes all kinds of problems, like what’s in the refrigerator. Couldn’t the work have been done in two four hour sessions on different days? I’ll drag the generator out and see if it starts, but that’s not how I wanted to spend my day.

Having said that, it’s probably a good day to take the laptop somewhere for a long brunch. Power, wifi, food…not a bad deal.

***

One day before the election, Herschel Walker outdoes himself in showing he’s not qualified to serve. In an NBC interview, he talks about serving in “The House”. Someone should tell him that he’s running for the Senate. I agree with Digby, Republicans should be embarrassed for running this guy.

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Kentucky men’s hoops finally got a quality win this past weekend, though we had to go to London for it. For all I care, they can play the whole season in Europe if we get good wins. Next up is Yale, back in the USA.

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I was really sorry to read this article about the imminent demise of Appharvest. Eastern KY needs a break, and the Appharvest concept is a good one. But someone forgot that making a profit is important to staying in business.

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There’s a lot of stuff I’d like to read in the NY Times, Forbes, The Economist, and the Washington Post, but I get blocked by paywalls. I suppose I should go ahead and pay the subscriptions. Most of the ad-supported sites I can get to are horrendous to read. The pages jerk around as ads try to render themselves.

I find myself thinking a lot about Covid this morning. It started with the news that an insider has come out with a book that states unequivocally that the SARS-CoV-2 release into the world was a lab accident, and that the virus is an engineered product. If that’s true, it’s mind-blowing. We did it to ourselves.

I’ve always thought that was a possibility, even likely. The virus first showed up in a city that hosts one of the world’s few BSL-4 virology labs. That lab is in China, but there are American ties to it too – we fund research there. So don’t bame China, it could have been Atlanta or Ft. Detrick or Boston. Occam’s Razor would point toward that lab as the source – the simplest explanation is almost always true. I tend to believe that the Wuhan BSL-4 lab was the source.

I wonder why the US government and media would push so hard for other explanations of the virus’ origin. Did they fear WW3 if US citizen’s were told that Covid was definitely a Chinese lab product? We’ll probably never know.

Then I think about my Dad, and wonder if he would still be here without Covid as a factor. Covid was the straw that broke the camel’s back in his case. Plus, Covid protocols and complications made the treatment of his base disease, congestive heart failure, problematic and certainly less effective than it would have been pre-Covid. On top of that, Covid made his last 2.5 years in the world much more lonely than they would have been. Fewer family visits, less human contact. Less time with his great grandkids. A real tragedy, one that I could never have imagined.

Then I think about how Covid changed the world, changed history. It broke the US economy. And it enabled a mentally ill, childish, venal US President to confuse the population about treatments and cause the US death rate to be the worst by far among all first-world nations. Yay for us, we’re #1.

Finally, I read today’s Eric Topol essay, The New Covid Wave, and I realize the nightmare isn’t over. Topol is one of the clearest, most informed voices out there on the subject, and he’s a little pessimistic about what’s happening right now. From his essay:

The main point is that we’re not doing what we can do to reduce the toll of the virus. That means for everyone (especially age 50+) getting a booster and using mitigation measures appropriately. It also means we’re poorly equipped to ever keep up with the virus, no less get ahead of it, having lost the power of monoclonal antibodies as a backstop and for the immunocompromised. This represents a do nothing posture and extends to not aggressively going after nasal vaccines and pan-β-coronavirus vaccines. The idea that current boosters could be used and effective on an annual basis is balderdash, given their durability is less than 6 months.

Topol points out, with a lot of supporting data, that the US’s abysmal performance in keeping citizens safe from the disease is continuing. We’re not very smart as a country these days. Perhaps this is just Darwin’s Law writ large – OK, you’re not going to step back from the precipice, so here’s a little push from yet another variant.

Of all the world-changing events that could have happened in my lifetime – first contact with aliens, invention of anti-gravity, colonizing Mars, rapid weight-loss that actually works – we get a pandemic. Go figure.