The reparation discussions in San Francisco have become crazy. The latest discussion point of $5M per CA person who identifies as black is being described as “inadequate”. The whole thing is nuts.
I’m as liberal as anyone you might meet. I will be the first to agree that there is racial and social injustice in America. I look for and vote for justice, but this “remedy” isn’t right. Here’s my take.
Many of my ancestors and your ancestors did bad things. Horrible things. Many Germans are descended from Nazis. Many Americans are descended from slave owners. Many African natives are also descended from slave owners – slavery was normal hundreds of years ago, on multiple continents. The Spanish and Portugese committed mass genocides throughout the Americas. As you go back through history, almost every nation/tribe/ethnic group has some horrible transgression to regret in their past. Our histories are savage and cruel.
My take is that those of us alive today should acknowledge those sins and strive to do better (much better, hopefully) in our lives, but I cannot be liable for the sins of my predecessors. I am accountable for myself, for my actions, and that’s it. Same for you. Any attempt to place the blame for sins of the past on current populations is illogical, unjust, and a ridiculously slippery slope. Where does it end?
Be aware of the sins of the past, learn from them, and be the best person you can be while you’re here. That’s all that makes sense to me.
Back to Cabo and some great fishing next week. Here’s the biggest fish I’ve ever caught, just a few hundred yards offshore at Cabo. Small marlin, about 130 pounds and over eight feet long nose to tail. I intended to catch and release but the poor guy swallowed the bait and hooks, so there was no way to save him.
He was *very* tasty. We ate like kings for a few days. I gave all the fish we didn’t keep to the boat captain and some of the locals.
I don’t have the patience for writing about anything of substance today (politics, mass shootings, CA climate, etc.), so I’ll write about my trivial passion – UK basketball.
It’s another frustrating season as a UK fan. So much talent, so much potential, and a weak, inconsistent result. In past decades opponents feared and respected Kentucky basketball teams, but no more. This decade we’re an also-ran in a tough SEC conference. And out of the conference, against good teams? A few random wins (beat Kansas at home last year), but generally 50-50 or worse outside the SEC. Meh.
We Kentuckians take great pride in our team and its historical success, even domination of the game. It’s fun to be part of a winning tradition. Lately…not so much. The big question is why.
The answer has to start with the coach. I’ve been a huge John Calipari fan for years, but he isn’t getting it done anymore. It’s not about this year, it’s about the last decade. Let’s take an objective look at JC’s UK record. From Wikipedia:
I mean, looking at the totals, it’s a great record. Who wouldn’t want a 78% win rate? But year after year, we fall short of the big prize and the meaningful wins under JC. Let’s work our way backwards, using the latter half of the season’s year as our marker. From Wikipedia, of course.
2022 – A great team that was expected to be in the Final Four, and we took a terrible loss in the first round (!!) of the NCAA tournament. That’s still an open wound around my house.
2021 – The worst year in UK hoops history. Just an awful, awful season.
2020 – Covid. ‘Nuff said.
2016 – 2019 – Good teams, decent runs into the NCAA tourney, but no Final Fours or championships.
2015 – The team that should have gone down in history as undefeated, but didn’t. The team with Tyler Ulis, the Harrison twins, Devon Booker, Karl Anthony Towns, Willy Cauley-Stein, and Alex Poythress. lost to Wisconsin in the first game of the Final Four. Lost in UK’s most hated arena in Indianapolis (we *never* play well in that place). This game was really the beginning of JC’s slow decline. Read about it all here.
2010-2014 – A great run, other than the shitty year in 2013 when we slummed it in the NIT and got bounced in the first round by Robert Morris (?!?!?). That was embarrassing. But this period saw us in three FF’s and one National Championship, so 2013 was mostly forgiven.
Looking at the big picture, we have four seasons where JC and the team achieved what is expected – a Final Four appearance. Four of thirteen (throwing out 2020 when there was no NCAA tourney and including this year, in which I predict we won’t make the FF), or 31%. Big picture, that’s not bad. Pretty much any school would take that, a 31% rate of getting to The Big Dance.
But the problem is that all those appearances were in the first half of JC’s tenure. Since 2015, nothing. No FF appearances and a string of bad losses in big games for eight years, including the Covid year and this year. Eight years is a long time for a fan base used to winning to be patient.
For some reason, JC has lost the ability to coach teams through the big games. Last week’s Kansas game was a great example. We had them – I could have coached that win, fergawdsake. For some inexplicable reason JC disrupted a winning lineup, took out his power forward freshman Chris Livingston, who was having a breakout game, and inserted Wheeler for most of the game. It wasn’t foul trouble; there was simply no explanation. Everyone who follows the game can see the trend – we’re a better team with Wheeler as a part-time role player off the bench. Calipari insists on playing him for long stretches, over and over. It’s maddening.
This kind of coach-inflicted loss is now the norm, so JC has to go. Love the guy as a human being, he’s a good person, but he’s not what we need right now to get UK back to being respected by opponents.
The Dogs of War are barking pretty loud lately. In the Russia-Ukraine war, US and allies have gone from sending “undefined support” (money, food, ammo, small arms), then to sending HIMARS rockets, then to sending all sorts of modern tanks, and now the US is talking about sending F-16s. We all knew this was a proxy war, but F-16s? We might as well send the full might of our Army and AF and push Russia back hard, somewhere deep into their original borders. Great idea, but…nukes. They get their butts kicked, you just know they’re going to trot out a nuke or two and show the west that they’re still a Player. It’s no wonder that the Doomsday Clock shows very little time left.
Another dog barking at a different threat – a four-star USAF General has gone on record saying that he thinks we will be in a shooting war with China by 2025. That’s helpful. And stupid. I admit that his opinion is probably better-informed than most, but it’s still just an opinion.
“I hope I am wrong,” General Mike Minihan, who heads the Air Mobility Command, wrote to the leadership of its roughly 110,000 members. “My gut tells me will fight in 2025.”
His gut tells him, huh? Sounds a little Dr. Strangelove to me.
He should keep his gut-driven fears to himself. The Pentagon should fire him, unless he’s being used to send a message. If that’s true, it’s even closer to midnight than we thought.
What a great day! After 4+ days of keto-induced digestive hell, I feel normal again. Never again shall I eat only meat and cheese. I had a perfectly great digestive system and broke it. And today the menu is pizza! with a UK game. #fuketo.
The Tyre Nichols tragedy (no known relation, but possible somewhere back in the family tree) in Memphis is beyond sad. What possesses a group of people, of policemen, to beat on someone like that? Something very wrong there. I won’t paint all of law enforcement with the same brush, but…something’s gotta change. This wasn’t a drugged up dude or a gang-banger, not that they would deserve what happened. Check out Tyre’s photography website. Basically that traffic stop could have been any of us.
***
Well, well, well. Turns out that Casey Handmer is now a business partner with my old company, Sempra Energy (SoCalGas is a subsidiary of Sempra Energy). Handmer’s startup company Terraform producing natural gas from atmospheric C02 is the intersection. I hope their prototype system does well. From Casey’s blog post:
Our completed system includes:
An industrial-scale 1 MW (5 acre) solar array to concentrate solar energy into usable electricity.
An electrolyzer to convert solar electricity directly into hydrogen without inverters or transmission.
A CO2 absorption bed to process large volumes of air and filter out the CO2, which can also produce water as a byproduct.
A Sabatier reactor to convert locally produced CO2 and hydrogen into pipeline-ready natural gas without intermediate compression or transport.
The system embodies the essence of cheap solar electrons, consumed at the source. Capital efficiency is favored over electrical efficiency, in service of a cheap and scalable product.
Yesterday’s visit to Torrey Pines was great, as usual. First class in every way. We did have some strong Santa Ana winds, but they bothered the golfers more than the fans. Today I get to enjoy the view from my living room. Here are a couple of shots from yesterday, Round 2. Firs, above the first tee.
Next, a group including Harry Higgs getting ready for their second shot on #14.
We definitely had a postcard-quality day in Socal. I got my 10,000 steps in around Torrey, plus a few more. I’ll respectfully disagree with the old saying about golf being “a good walk spoiled”.
More bad news today about the health of a close friend. I suppose I’m at the age where this will now be a regular occurrence.
Not much time to write today, as I’m off to Torrey Pines to spend a day watching the pros hit golf balls the way I can only dream of. Perfect weather and perfect venue, so I’m expecting a nice walk around the best bit of real estate in San Diego.
Here’s another nice bit of real estate 6000 miles away. In Bruges.
I don’t write much at night, but KY is playing such a great game against Vandy tonight. It’s a thing of beauty, the way it should be. For the first time in a long while the Cats look like the better athletes I think they are. I’m grateful.
And the refs only called 5 fouls on Vandy the entire game (?!?!). Impossible. But we won anyway.
Two more senseless, tragic mass shootings in California in the last few days. The Monterey Park shootings hit me hard, as I have history with that east LA town. Kaiser has (had?) a big IT facility there, and I had about 100 people who worked for me there from 2007-2018. I used to make the drive to Monterey Park quite often and got to know the area well. It’s an odd little Asian-centric part of LA, just east of some of the worst ganglands in LA. Great seafood and Asian fare. I liked the people who worked for me in MP, so I came to like the area. I just hope none of them are in the victim list.
I know what it will take to stop this, but I don’t know if we’ll ever be honest with ourselves. The problem is 100% about the easy availability of guns and ammo in America. These are troubled people, likely mentally unstable, and they have easy access to guns. Effectively no controls. So innocent people get shot and killed, again and again. May the NRA and the politicians who enact criminally-lax gun laws burn in hell, because they’ve indirectly murdered thousands.
Saying it again, we don’t need to abolish private gun ownership. We DO need gun licensing, required and ongoing training, and an active regulation of gun owners. Owning and using a gun should be like flying an airplane – you get trained and vetted, you get licensed, and usage is monitored and regulated. We don’t let just any old fool fire up a Cessna and take off, and we shouldn’t let that same old fool buy and use a gun over the course of one day.
This lack of control on guns makes America look stupid, dangerous, foolish and even evil. What will it take to change us?
I’ve hit a bit of an inspirational lull lately. I’m not traveling this month, so there goes that platform for commentary. I’m fresh out of outrage for the political shenanigans in the US. Politicians gonna be assholes, nothing new there. Guns and gun violence continue unabated – what else can one say that hasn’t been said? My ongoing struggles with digital photography and Fujifilm cameras are hard to document – I can provide a lot of out-of-focus pictures, but who wants to see that? And I’m not involved in any technical/consulting projects at present, just the part-time Board work.
I think I’m at one of those “what’s next?” turning points in life. I know what I want to spend my time on – get back to creative writing, novel writing. But I got soooo stuck trying to finish the first book, there’s a reluctance (fear?) to dive back in. Where and how to start?
I’m toying with the idea of setting the first book aside and starting a new project. Once I’m in the writing flow again, I can resurrect Lost Hope (an unintentionally ironic title at this point) and finish it. Some ideas for a new project include:
Something about gravity – the last unknown force in physics; the thing that keeps us tethered to Earth. If we solve the mystery of gravity, how does that change the world?
Something about consciousness. Does consciousness define reality? What does it mean to be a conscious observer in this universe?
A world where the human birth rate plummets rapidly and we can’t replace those who die. Human population goes from 8 billion to 100 million in four generations. Can we maintain a technological civilization, or do we fall back into an 1850s-style life? And what else happens to the world?
A second book in the Lost Hope lunar setting where the protagonist has become the Moon’s first/only PI with a mystery or two to solve. Dispense with all the backstory and origin story stuff that has me stymied in the first book. So move on to book two before finishing book one – a weirdly attractive idea.
Those are just a few ideas rattling around in the head. It’s time to get busy and bring one of them to life.
I’m looking forward to seeing this. Kavanaugh’s behavior at the hearings around his SCOTUS nomination was awful – something is/was definitely wrong with that guy. Not the kind of emotional behavior I’d want in a Justice. And the “investigation” of accusations about him was pretty obviously flawed, a political circus. But hey, The Honorable BK is photogenic. He’s got that going for him.
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I’m so tired of reading about the corruption of our politicians. Here’s Fox news with an article about Joe Manchin’s right-out-in-the-open siphoning of millions of tax dollars to organizations led by his wife. Just one more example of why we need term limits on these guys. Get elected, do something useful for your voters in 4-6 years, then go home. But instead we have an eternal set of power brokers more interested in gaining wealth and personal power than in governing.
Cats have another big game today, against Texas A&M. They’re all big games now, after squandering the first part of the season with weak efforts. Let’s make it three quality wins in a row today!
David Crosby died, age 81. This one hurts – I loved love Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s music. Most of their songs are iconic; they’re eternal in my life. David lived a hard life – he’s looked 80+ for a lot of years. I’ll have to listen to some CSN&Y music this weekend in his honor.
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My DVR recorded 8 random episodes from the middle of The West Wing’s final season, season 7. I say “my DVR recorded” because the selection of episodes seems random, and if I had chosen it would have recorded the whole season. Whatever. But I’ve watched those the last couple of days, and it’s still so good. One side effect – I hope that I never have to see the Edie Falco/ASPCA commercial featuring dozens of cold, sad chained-up dogs again. Breaks my heart to see that, and they show it constantly.
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The rain is over for a week in Socal, so it’s time to get out and walk a little. Maybe some golf, maybe a few photography walks. Though I have enjoyed holing up in the house watching the rain – it finally feels like a proper winter.
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Been thinking about my Dad a lot lately. He would have been in his glory these last few weeks, with lots of pro football on TV, plus the UK basketball games. We compared notes on the UK games a couple of times each week the last few years, and I miss that. He was good to talk with once we got him off the painkillers (2020).
***
I received some very bad news about my friend John from Ohio. He and I were close during my 20s in Ohio, and while we drifted apart and lived separate lives in our 40s and 50s, you never forget someone you were that close to. John has been fighting a bad case of cancer, and it’s taken a turn for the worse. I’m still hoping for a medical miracle.
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Finally, yesterday I was elected President (they have a President rather than a Chairman) of the board of directors for San Diego Health Connect, a non-profit providing health data integration services for the San Diego region. It’s a smaller role than the board work I did for 211 San Diego, but it should be interesting and impactful. I’ve always had an interest in how clinical data can/should be shared across health care organizations, and now I can turn some of that interest into action. Board work is a good thing for me in semi-retirement – plays to my strengths without being a 9 to 5 soul crusher.
Busy day today. Board meeting, cleanup around the property after the storms, cleanup in my office (the paper monster), and getting my camera gear organized for travel. Have gone to a small camera pack that fits inside a carry-on backpack.
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Last night’s UK game against GA was a joy to watch, mostly because of Oscar Tshiebwe. He had a huge game after his coach criticized him publicly. Whatever works. But that’s now two in a row, and gives some hope that the lackluster Cats are a thing of the past.
***
Lots to be outraged about today; here are a few examples.
The new NY congresscritter, Santos or whatever his name is, stole money from a dying dog’s GoFundMe. His last name was Devolder at the time. Stealing from a dying dog, that’s a new low. The Republicans should be proud.
There’s just no end to amazing, confusing, and outrageous items today. You really couldn’t make this stuff up – reality is weirder than fiction. I think I’ll just read a book.
Weird day today. Workout with trainer early, then I have to have one of those HR-famous “difficult conversations” with an employee of my for-profit company. At least there’s a KY game later tonight to make up for a tough morning.
The rain has stopped for a while. It has rained eight inches the last two weeks, more than the annual total in four of the last ten years! 2023 will be a good year to grow things here, and then we’ll have a super-high risk fire season this fall. Win some, lose some.
At least with the drier weather I can get out and take some photography walks with my new lens – a 70-300 zoom for the Fuji. I need plenty of practice before Africa.
After 2.5 inches of rain yesterday, another inch and a half today. Exciting. We’ll probably have a desert superbloom as a result. Here’s are a couple of superbloom photos (March 2017), first from the mountainside and the next one in the desert. They’re pretty special.
In Borrego Springs.
So perhaps my rainy, dark two-hour drive to the airport and back today will be worth it.
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It’s MLK Day today, and I wish we had more people like him around these days. Our “leaders” today are peformative, not substantive. We’re so busy arguing about culture wars that we forget to do anything real. MLK had a great cause, he spoke truth to power, and he paid the price for that. It’s a good day to remember that.
The rest of the day today will be R&R for me. Rainy day, nothing urgent going on – my favorite kind. I have books to read, camera menus to figure out, and movies to watch. Hell, I might even exercise.
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Finally for today, I love the fact that serious universities are spending time researching methods that we might travel among the stars. Here’s a paper from Columbia University that shows how we might travel at a decent percentage of light speed using only solar sails and black holes. It’s called The Halo Drive. In theory it works (they’ve done the math; that’s the point of the publication). Align yourself along the vector a black hole is traveling, positioned ahead of it, shoot a beam of light back toward the black hole at a very specific angle, and voila – the light slingshots around the hole and pushes you ahead with substantial energy gain.
From the paper:
The Halo Drive
An appealing aspect of the halo drive is that no fuel is spent. The spacecraft gradually gains energy during its initial acceleration and then discharges that energy for further acceleration up to terminal velocity – the speed at which the spacecraft returns to its original mass.
The terminal velocity of the spacecraft is 133% the black hole’s speed, to first-order. Critically, this velocity in not sensitive to the mass of the spacecraft, with the only assumption being that said mass is much less than that of the black hole. Accordingly, a major advantage of the halo drive is that Jupiter-mass spacecraft could be accelerated to relativistic speeds.
Beam divergence due to tidal effects on a finite beam width could be mitigated by careful beam shaping. Di- vergence due to diffraction is not expected to lead to noticeable losses for large spacecraft using optical lasers within a hundred Schwarzschild radii. Nevertheless, for this reason, the system is argued to be impractical at distances much greater than this, thereby necessitating relatively expedient acceleration.
An advanced civilization utilizing such a system would first have to have achieved interstellar flight to journey towards the nearest suitable BH. They could then could use BHs in binary systems as way-points throughout the galaxy, of which there are likely O[107] in the Milky Way (Reggiani & Meyer 2013), serving as both accelera- tion and deceleration stations. Alternatively, they could use the larger population of BHs which do not reside in compact binaries (Elbert et al. 2017) via their proper motions, although this would not permit for such high velocities.
All we have to do is reach interstellar space, find black holes, and prepare ourselves for a decades long voyage to the next star system. Simple!
We broke a couple of records weather yesterday. We had over 2.5 inches of rain in a single day, something that hasn’t happened since the record 2004 rainy season. So biggest rain day in about 18 years. Plus, we broke the all-time record low temperature last night – it got down to 28 degrees, shattering the old record of 34 degrees. This is/was a *cold* Pacific storm. More rain coming tonight and Monday. I’m very happy that we live atop a hill on a hard granite foundation – flooding is the one hazard we don’t have to worry about.
Picture from that epic 2004 rain season, our first winter here. Picture taken with my trusty old Canon Powershot G2, one of my favorite cameras.
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Another amazing thing happened yesterday. The UK men’s basketball squad beat #5 Tennessee, at home. I didn’t give them a snowball’s chance in hell after their awful performance against SC. And after a completely lackluster season so far. But they showed up, played very hard, and came out with a W. In my opinion, the best win of the last 5-6 years.
What made it even better was that we played five players against Tennessee’s eight – 5 players and 3 refs. This was the worst (best?) example of home cooking refereeing I’ve ever seen. TN mugged our players, time after time, with no call. It was more like a rugby game. But our guys kept their cool, weren’t intimidated, and played on. It was exciting and beautiful, the way I remember UK games being. Their big man, 7 foot 1 inch Plasvic, played as dirty a college game as I’ve ever seen. And the refs let him.
Uros Plavsic is an unbelievably dirty player and @SECOfficiating did absolutely nothing about it today
I don’t know what to conclude from this game. Is this a turning point? Will we see this tough team again, or was this just lightning striking? I suppose we’ll find out next week. But for now I can bask in the glow of a great win.
The current kerfuffle over classified documents being found at President Biden’s various residences has reminded me how bad, how utterly clueless, Democrats seem to be at messaging. It’s inexplicable, and it’s constant. Republicans are actually great, even genius, at creating memes and messages that subtly move public opinion their way. Democrats, not so much.
The Biden team should get ahead of this with a few direct messages, as in:
As President I regret the mishandling of classified documents – I take our county’s security very seriously. It’s become clear that we have a problem with classified material handling in the Executive Branch, and we will fix that. It’s a problem that goes back many administrations.
As President my only goal in this matter is to make sure that the information in classified documents is protected, and I applaud the Justice Department’s efforts to find and fix any and all problems here. I think any President, past or present, should do the same.
In other words, own it, throw some shade at the previous guy, and move on. Use these same answers to every question about the matter. That’s messaging – make your point and stay on point.
But the bigger issue is with messaging in general, that thing that liberals are soooo bad at. I’ll start with “socialists”. When conservatives call liberals socialists, they’re tying liberals to Russia. Most Americans confuse socialism with communism. The 1950s-1980s Cold War created a fear of everything Russian among Americans, and that still lives today. True socialism isn’t a bad thing – in fact we have a helluva lot of socialism built into our system. We pay taxes to do things for the social benefit of everyone – defend the country, build roads and bridges, educate people, clean up our air and water. It’s not a complicated concept, but it’s a concept that almost everyone gets wrong and it starts with conservatives tossing the word around like it’s an insult. And Democrats just let it happen.
And how about “Patriots”? MAGA types have grabbed the Patriot label to mean those who believe like them, who are ultra-conservative, gun-loving white Christians. They wrap themselves in flags and call themselves Patriots, leaving the rest of us as…”not Patriots”? Why do Democrats allow the word patriot to be co-opted like that? Liberals should push back hard on this and point out the hypocrisy. But we don’t.
Then there’s the big one – “pro-life”. Conservatives have successfully labelled themselves as pro-life, leaving the impression that everyone else is pro-death. The best liberals have come up with is “pro-choice”, which is better, but the conservatives grabbing the pro-life label is brilliant.
Another big one, a self-inflicted wound. “Defund the police”. The single worst slogan ever, originated by a frustrated minority group and instantly attached to the liberal cause. Democrats should have come out strong against that slogan the instant it was uttered, but they didn’t. It’s been weaponized and now lives as a foundational talking point for conservatives. “Democrats hate law enforcement” is the conclusion they lead people to. And it works – it has helped cement law enforcement’s general tendency to vote Republican.
I would offer my services to the Democratic party, but I fear that my brand of messaging might not play well either. If I had to stand in front of the Washington press corps every day (what a nightmare), most of my answers would be “How can you be that fucking stupid? Next question.” That would make a headline or two.
Sleeping has been weird lately. More time in the rack, less actual sleep. No drinking, that’s not the problem – The Hurt Locker has been closed all week. But today after 10+ hours in bed, I feel like a zombie. Wiped out and sleep deprived, for sure. Physical rest isn’t sleep. Naps help a little, but…gotta figure out what’s wrong here.
One of the first of many surprises in his research was to find out that the genetic differences between Neanderthals and all modern humans (amounting to about 30,000) are far less than the differences between two random human beings alive today – around 3 million. “Our job is to find out which of those 30,000 are most important, because they tell us what makes us uniquely human,” he says.
At least half of the Neanderthal genome – probably as much as 60 to 70% of it, Pääbo believes – is to be found in living humans. “Which means that in effect Neanderthals are not really extinct at all, they are in us.”
As if UK playing TN in Knoxville tomorrow isn’t bad enough – we’re likely to get slaughtered; UK is a mess and TN looks very strong – it’s airing at 9am Pacific time. Nothing like a breakfast massacre to start the day off right.
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Fedex gaslit me yesterday, or they made an honest mistake that their online systems obfuscate. They sent me about a dozen messages that they tried to deliver a package at 1140am and failed because the homeowner wasn’t present. Well, I was right here and the doorbell didn’t ring. My Ring doorbell/camera has no event at that time, or video. So if they tried, it was at someone else’s house. They say they’ll try again today. My suspicion is that this is just a method to reduce the load of an over-scheduled truck and driver yesterday. No way to know for sure.
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The big Trump organization crime family tax fraud case ended today with a penalty of $1.6M levied on the organization for 17 felonies. That’s…disappointing. $1.6M isn’t enough to get their attention or to hurt at all. Once again, Teflon Don slithers away.
I’m writing a rapid turnaround proposal for one of my companies, and I had forgotten how much I like (a) proposal writing, and (b) the initial part of projects, particularly requirements analysis. It’s something I’m good at, and something most people struggle with. So I’ll knock out a detailed 15-20 page proposal for them in just a couple of days. Win for them, win for me.
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The news about Biden having two found caches of classified documents is just awful. It completely undermines the push to make Trump accountable for his willful taking of documents. Somehow, Cockroach Don always scuttles away. And Republicans get to have a huge round of their favorite game, what-about-ism.
This news also keeps anyone from focusing on the Republicans’ newest liability, George Santos, liar extraordinaire.
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The KY basketball saga just gets worse and worse. Now OT is calling out his teammates publicly for not playing hard enough. That won’t help team chemistry. I lay it on the coach – for $9M+ a year, JC needs to fix this. Yesterday.
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I’ll only say this once. I care absolutely nothing about Prince Harry and the shitshow that the UK royal family have become. They’re not news, and I wish the media would stop shoving their lame stories in our face.
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Higher education has gone completely off the rails. Otherwise reputable institutions (I’m rethinking that reputable part) have decided to ban the word “field” in descriptions of work, calling it racist.
The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the University of Southern California’s school of social work have taken steps to ban the word “field” on official documents, citing racist implications.
In a Monday memo, the University of Southern California’s Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work informed students, faculty, and staff that it would no longer use the word “field” or “field work” from its curriculum and would now use the term “practicum” instead because the word “field” was linked to slavery.
Yeah, “practicum” is really going to catch on. Fergawdsake.
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Finally, Jeff Beck’s sudden death really hurts. I’ve been a Jeff Beck fan since college; played some of his music just the other day. He truly was a guitar god. RIP.
Tough morning. Grandson Hudson is in the hospital with a serious infection. I woke up every hour or two last night in case there was news. I expect he’ll come out of this fine, but…hospital.
On top of that UK lost to the worst team in the SEC, a team we were supposed to beat by 20. So I guess that makes us the worst team in the SEC. On any other day I’d call that a tragedy, but with Hudson in the hospital, it’s just background noise.
UPDATE: As of 1/12, he’s doing fine. A couple of nights in the hospital for frequent blood tests and a pretty big post-debride wound on his finger, but he should be home soon. Infections are serious stuff, and we’re all thankful that this one is back under control.
I enjoyed a nice bottle of Pinot last night. Then I didn’t enjoy the workout this morning – it hurt. Thus, I have a new name for my wine cellar – The Hurt Locker.
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The news is full of dire news about rain and flooding in a lot of California, but there is an upside. Lakes and reservoirs are refilling, fast.
The table below shows the changes in the water level of the state’s 15 largest lakes by volume, with water level measured in feet above average sea level.
Lake
Water Level (ft MSL) 12/26/22
Water Level (ft MSL) 01/09/23
Change in water level (ft)
Shasta Lake
921
942
+21
Lake Oroville
673
735
+62
Trinity Lake
2,189
2,204
+15
New Melones Lake
883
908
+25
San Luis Reservoir
412
430
+18
Don Pedro Reservoir
737
765
+28
Lake Berryessa*
394
401
+7
Lake Almanor
N/A
N/A
N/A
Folsom Lake
386
406
+20
Lake McClure
676
735
+59
Pine Flat Lake
766
801
+35
New Bullards Bar Reservoir
1,861
1,890
+29
Diamond Valley Lake
N/A
N/A
N/A
Lake Tahoe
6,223
6,224
+1
Lake Havasu
447
448
+1
Source: Lakes Online *Lake Berryessa data from Solano County Water Agency
A rise of more than sixty feet of water in some lakes in less than a month! And that’s without the snow melt. From where I sit (not flooded), this all sounds pretty great.
Another day with not much to say. I think it’s the existential dread of the UK game tonight, wondering if the team will continue to suck or will somehow miraculously get on track. Odds are on the former.
Meanwhile, have some bighorn sheep from Borrego Springs.
The recent story about a Virginia teacher being shot by a six-year-old student during an argument in class is morbidly fascinating. In one awful morality tale, it illustrates (1) the extreme problem we have with gun control in America, and (2) the problems we have with children exposed to violence and their subsequent violent behavior.
If I were in charge (a game I often play), here’s what I would do:
Until there are fewer guns in America (not holding my breath), every school needs metal detectors. At every entrance.
Phones would not be allowed in schools – let’s have everyone focused on teaching and learning, not importing social media with all its ills. This would help weaken the psychological lock phones and social media have on kids today.
Pay for police presence outside every school while children are there and school is in session. Between this and item 1, school shootings should be close to zero.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not an expert here, but something has to change. We are failing generations of kids by allowing gun violence to affect their school life and their formative years. School should be a special and safe place in their lives, and it clearly isn’t. We have to do better.
Well, after a few days of research and some detailed planning, we’re going to Africa! Late July and early August, 10 days on the continent plus another two days on each side for travel. A solid 14 days door to door.
A lot of tradeoffs had to be made – time, money, sights to see or not. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of tours available. My vetting process was progressive – I first just wandered around the Internet looking at tour and operators that looked interesting, then I got some recommendations (thanks, cousin Donnie!), then I looked at high-end reviewers (e.g. Forbes magazine) and their recommendations for tours and operators. The more I thought about it, the tour operator’s brand and reputation became just as important as the tour itself. I wanted a company that has a long track record and has a solid, well-known reputation. In the end, I went with National Geographic tours.
We’re focusing on the areas around Johannesburg and Victoria Falls, with an emphasis on Kruger and Chobe National Parks. We also get a private game reserve trip or two – those are good because you don’t have to stick to the roads. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on airplanes to cover more geography – Africa is a *big* place. Our wishlist is/was (1) Lots of time on animal viewing opportunities, (2) chance to see Victoria Falls, (3) at least one river cruise through an animal-heavy area, and (4) as I mentioned, minimal time spent on cities and airplane rides. The tour we selected (and then customized a bit) does all that.
Africa trips certainly aren’t cheap, and I think we hit the right balance among luxury, time and opportunity on this trip. We selected midrange accommodations – top-shelf Africa lodges can be crazy expensive, at $1000-1500 per night per person. Don’t really need to stay in a five-star on a wildlife trip, so we asked our operator to find us more reasonable accommodations. However, I draw the line at plumbing. Hot and cold fresh water are a must. And we didn’t try to do everything on one trip. If it’s as good as advertised, we’ll be back for another sample.
I’m pretty excited about it, as excited as I’ve been about a trip in many years. Looking forward to seeing our long-necked friend below in his (her? their?) natural habitat, with many other four-legged friends.
I find that I don’t have much to say today, so here’s a picture of some jellyfish instead. Taken at the Monterrey Aquarium in 2014 with a cheap camera. Shows I maybe don’t need the high end gear to take memorable shots.
I am definitely feeling this – a decreased tolerance to alcohol – the last couple of years. More so the last six months. My recovery time from any drinking is longer – noticeably longer. Not good news for a guy with an extensive wine cellar. There are very few upsides to getting older.
***
In reading this article I also noticed something new in editing, something I’m not so happy about. The gender fluidity movement has many repercussions for those of us writing and editing, and here’s a new one.
Some people—including those who are elderly—may get wobbly after one alcoholic beverage, while others need a few drinks to feel any impact. “Body size and composition are significant factors in alcohol detoxification and tolerance regardless of age,” says Dr. Schwartz. “Many [people who identify as] men tend to have larger bodies, which indicates more area to distribute alcohol in lowering the overall alcohol content. They also tend to have more muscle, which in turn leads to a higher water content, helping to dilute and diminish the effect of alcohol on the body. Also, some [people who identify as] women have less alcohol dehydrogenase, the enzyme that breaks down alcohol, leaving more alcohol in the bloodstream for longer periods of time.” This is why the U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommend keeping drinking habits to a minimum, which they define as no more than two drinks per day for men and one per day for women.
It’s that [people who identify as] phrase that caught my attention. Must we always now put that in as a disclaimer for the things we write? I think not – if someone identifies as a gender different than that defined by their chromosomes, that’s their business, not mine. They can do the translation for themselves when they read the material.
***
Doing research for the potential Africa trip is daunting – there are a lot of possibilities, at a lot of different price points. It occurs to me that this isn’t like my usual Europe or even Central America trip. In those trips I feel completely OK doing the detailed itinerary myself, and if I make a mistake on connections, cost or quality, I can deal with it. But with Africa, I have zero experience, it’s a huge continent with major variations by region and country, and some areas just aren’t stable or safe. It’s that safety thing that has gotten my attention – for a couple of weeks we’re putting our complete safety and trust in whoever we hire to escort us around the continent. Physical safety, food, trust in subcontractors…I’m leaning toward paying more to be sure we have a 100% reputable tour operator.
***
In updates on this week’s Speaker of the House election debacle, Kevin McCarthy continues to give concessions to his opponents without getting anything in return. That’s some seriously bad negotiating, but we already knew he is a moron.
It’s raining again, and supposed to rain even harder tomorrow. That’s great news for Socal. Sure, it’s a cool, gloomy week, but we have 50 or so other weeks in the year with sunshine. Easy to deal with unless you’re a tourist choosing this week to vacation in sunny San Diego.
***
UK and LSU met in a slugfest last night, and the Cats came out with a win. This was a quality win against a good team – the best we’ve played this season. And we won in spite of the reigning Worst Ref in the World TMDoug Shows. Shows has a history of incredibly bad calls against UK, and he had a couple of them at the worst time last night. Shows should be banned from the sport. Nonetheless, this was the UK team I expected to see! Let’s be happy, but not too happy – that’s exactly one in a row. And we play Alabama next at their house, a *very* tough outing.
***
I’ve started making reservations for our annual Cabo trip in February. One day of fishing and a couple of evening meals at places where you need a reservation. It’s always a great week. No other travel planned for January (for me), so looking forward to Cabo a month from now. Whales galore, fresh fish, fresh air, great photo opportunities, some quality tequila, and front porch seats on the Pacific. I’d stay there a month if we could.
Here’s a picture of a Mexican band that entertains at the resort every year lately. I like the light.
***
That horrific story about a Tesla crash 250 feet down a cliff off CA Highway 1 has taken an even more horrific twist. The occupants, two adults and two children, all survived – an absolute miracle, and perhaps a testament to the Tesla’s design. But the male driver has now been arrested for intentionally driving over the cliff. I imagine the other adult in the car, a woman, had plenty to say to police once she was rescued. Yikes!
***
I’m really enjoying reading about the infighting among House Republicans and the election of the House Speaker. Kevin McCarthy is despicable and deserves all the mud they’re dragging him through. And the Republicans, with “control” of the House, decided to remove all metal detectors from entrances to the House as their first official action. That will allow the gun-carrying wingnuts to bring their weapons into Congressional sessions (?!). I’m sure that will turn out well.
It’s raining again here today – that’s about two inches in the last week, a big total for us. I’m thankful for that – the last few years have been dry, dry, dry.
***
In the “man, we sure are stupid” category, it turns out that the wingnuts now believe that a lot of deaths during the pandemic were due to the vaccines. From Rasmussen:
Nearly half of Americans think COVID-19 vaccines may be to blame for many unexplained deaths, and more than a quarter say someone they know could be among the victims.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that (49%) of American Adults believe it is likely that side effects of COVID-19 vaccines have caused a significant number of unexplained deaths, including 28% who think it’s Very Likely. Thirty-seven percent (37%) don’t say a significant number of deaths have been caused by vaccine side effects, including 17% who believe it’s Not At All Likely. Another 14% are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
It’s amazing how wingnuts will twist facts to fit their conspiracy theories.
***
Poor Hopey and her job prospects. “We all look like domestic terrorists now.” Yep, you do and you were. You lie down with dogs, you get fleas. And her lack of empathy for those injured during J6, for democracy, is telling.
***
It’s workout with a trainer day again today. I dread it right up until it’s over, and then I’m very happy I did the work. The mind is a strange master.
And finally today, I like this game of comparing first lines of books people are reading. Mine is from Linda Nagata’s somewhat dense book Edges: “Against a starscape, a smudge of white light.”
