I spent the first part of the day playing little kids games with the grandsons, and the second part of the day holed up at home napping and watching a movie. It’s been a very, very retired day.
I’ve had little time to ponder what happened at the end of my great day yesterday – Trump getting indicted by the NY DA.
It feels good to see a step toward bringing him to justice, but it’s a long, long way from a conviction. He’s still Teflon Don. I expect several things to happen:
The other legal trouble he’s in, mostly in Georgia for election fraud, will escalate. Now that NY has broken the indictment ice, there’s no reason for anyone else to hold back.
Trump’s popularity among his loyal 30-40% will go up – he’s now their martyr.
Trump will fundraise the hell out of this situation. Being indicted will probably bring him an extra $100 million or so.
It’s hard to predict the outcome of this NY Stormy Daniels case, but the Georgia case…when they indict, he will be convicted of crimes. His punishment…who the hell knows? How do you imprison a guy with lifetime Secret Service protection?
We’re living in strange times, and I hope our legal system upholds the principle that no one is above the law. That’s a big ask, but we need it. You do a crime, you do the time.
What a great day. Even though I didn’t sleep well, the daylight hours have made up for it. Beautiful day, and I managed to balance indoor and outdoor activities.
I shook off the sleep fatigue and managed a solid three hours of writing. Happy with the results. My editing brain was fully engaged. Many improvements made.
Then I had my Thursday session with the trainer. Not as hard as I expected, and I always feel good after. A shower, then back to writing a while.
Took a lunch break for a salad at Green District. While driving there and back, I got to enjoy the redbud that’s blooming all over town. Dogwood blooms are right behind the redbud…I love this time of year. Redbud almost makes me want to believe in god. It’s that perfect.
Then a short nap, then more writing. Mid-afternoon I went to visit the grandsons, and had a fun time with them playing in the yard until they had to take off with their Dad for haircuts. They left me out of that activity – I can’t understand why. đ So I decided to come home and relax a bit. First, a session with old Rush videos on Youtube, then sitting out on my tiny front porch with some Spanish wine while the sun is still out. The Rush videos are awesome – I smile every time I see those dudes in their prime. They’re not for everyone, but if you can get past Geddy Lee’s voice, they’re one of the 2-3 best rock bands ever. Alex Lifeson, Geddy Lee, and Neal Peart. Rock gods, immortal.
During all that K got her birthday present, her new car, and we had a good time chatting about that over iPhones. She’s happy, so I’m happy.
Finally, I chatted with neighbors while sitting on my porch, enjoying the last bit of sunlight. Porch sitting, a very KY thing.
I may be the most informed person in all of America. I spent hours last night reading political, sports, science, and even entertainment websites because I couldn’t sleep. So now when I get up in the morning, there’s nothing left to read and I’m too groggy to write anything but a short essay. It’s a miserable way to start the day.
It’s raining again in Fallbrook, so we’re now up to 25 inches, the second-largest rainfall season in at least 20 years. More than double the average. It’ll be green when I return, though watch out for this year’s fire season.
I’m really interested in learning how ChatGPTx can be used to manage projects. One thought is to produce great requirements and specification documents. Take transcripts of interviews with stakeholders talking about what the thing being built must be or do (a system, a building, a software module, etc.) and allow the GPT to produce properly-formatted requirements matrices and documents from that input. This could save 100s or 1000s of hours in a large project, plus increase the quality of project documentation. I assume every big consulting company is thinking along the same lines. If I were to get back into the workforce as a systems analyst and use ChatGPTx, I could produce 10x the results I used to.
I have to do a shout-out to The Gralehaus for an excellent brunch yesterday. Such a tiny little place, and everything they push out of their kitchen is great. The waitress there tells me that I’m the only person who has laughed about the chef names listed on the menu: Chefs David Burnt and another play on Brian Eno that I can’t remember.
I could write something about the shitshow(s) currently happening in Congress, but Heather Cox Richardson does it so much better. Read her essay here.
Idaho has watched Florida and Texas become leaders in the “Return to the 1700s” contest, and after some consideration said “Hold my beer”. Idaho has created a new crime called “abortion trafficking”. From Huffpost:
Idaho already has some of the most extreme abortion restrictions on the books, with nearly all abortions banned in the state and an affirmative defense law that essentially asserts any doctor who provides an abortion is guilty until proven innocent. And now Idaho Republicans have set their sights on hindering certain residents from traveling out of state to get an abortion.
Pretty soon they’ll make it illegal to even mention abortion, 1st Amendment be damned. We’re very close to living in Gilead. When will women see that this is just the first step in stripping them of their rights and start voting appropriately?
Another day, another mass shooting at a school. This time the shooter is a trans person, born female but identifying as male. That will muddy the story but perhaps clarify the motive. In any event, another unnecessary tragedy that might have been averted with gun control.
I try hard to make this blog more about travel and events, less of a diary, but today it’s tough. For some weird reason I had the worst night’s sleep in memory. Woke up feeling much tireder (is that even a word?) than when I went to bed. Eyes won’t focus; just exhausted. Zero alcohol yesterday. I *did* go to bed pretty late, 1130ish. But damn, this morning is rough. I need to figure out what’s going on.
Reading lots of articles about the upcoming Final Four, most predicting UConn as the winner. I’m picking the Aztecs for the championship, with the final game between SDSU and UConn. I’m a believer, go Aztecs! I’ve decided to have an open basketball marriage, in relationships with both Kentucky and SDSU. (I live in both places, so why not?) I’ll be in KY for the Aztecs’ first game and in San Diego for the championship.
I have finally, finally restarted my novel and am making progress. I read about an author who wrote her recent book in six weeks and I felt ashamed. If they can do it, so can I. Well, only if I get this sleep deprivation thing under control. Right now I feel about as creative as…well, I can’t complete that thought. Case closed.
My workout today is going to be a bitch. An evil bitch. But I’ll push through it – maybe that’s what I need to trigger a better night’s sleep.
Update: The workout wasn’t as bad as expected, but now I just want to lay down and sleep in my pool of sweat. Nice image, and the reality is probably worse.
My NCAA tourney adventure with friends ended this morning as they left for the airport. On a weekend when I thought the most exciting thing I’d do was take a walk with the grandsons (still did that), I unexpectedly attended two incredibly exciting games in which the Aztecs improbably advanced to the Final Four. This was the next best thing to UK being in the hunt, and brought back some of the joy of college basketball for me.
Attending the games in person was really something – you get a jolt of excitement there that you just can’t get on TV. And college basketball games are the perfect length, only about two hours. Baseball and football games can get loooong and tedious, but college hoops is in the Goldilocks zone. The finish of the Creighton game was one of the wildest I’ve ever seen – for the last 3 minutes of the game clock (stretching out to 15-20 minutes real time), it was clear that anyone could win. Lots of suspense. Sharing all this, plus some great food and drinks, with our friends from San Diego was special.
But now it’s back to reality. Some reading, some naps, some time with the boys and trying to live a lot healthier for a week. Sounds wonderful.
It’s been great having company in our little house. About half the time I’m here, I’m alone, and while that time is enjoyable the conversations get a little stale. I tend to agree with myself.
But with friends here in the mornings and evenings, we can talk about people, politics, religion, literature, sports…all the things I love debating. These two friends see the world mostly as I do, so it’s not contentious, but it’s still fun to share the experiences and opinions. With our somewhat isolated home in Fallbrook and a small set of friends/family in Louisville, those discussions have been rare.
The other topic I’ve spent time on this morning while we wait to set out for Yum Center is ChatGPT. The more I learn about it, I’m convinced of two things:
It’s not an AI with free will and consciousness. It might become a building block for such a thing, but it’s not there yet. Not even close.
Having said that, it will change the business world, and quickly. It’s an extremely powerful knowledge tool, on the same level as spreadsheets, word processors and computer simulations. It’s a new way of interacting with complex back end systems and knowledge bases, and in a few years every person in corporate America will need to become comfortable with ChatGPT4 and successors. ChatGPT can and will build websites, write technical and marketing documentation, produce complex graphs and reports, write software, and do basic research. Many, many entry level jobs will be replaced.
Almost all the things that the Star Trek cast did while interacting with their fake starship computer are now possible. You can use plain English to tell the computer to do complex things on your behalf, and have it answer almost any question. So now we’ve got the communicator (mobile phones) and the omnipresent talking computer. I hope I’m around for warp drive and the transporter.
Fortunately, we humans will still get to play sports and do manual labor jobs. Jesse is on the right track.
Pretty big 24 hours here in Louisville. Went to the NCAA game at Yum yesterday and saw SDSU knock off the #1 team, Alabama. Amazing, exciting game with a great ending.
Today we took a great walk with the grandsons along Beargrass Creek and the zoo. Grandson Jesse is a dynamo on his scooter, and not even 3 years old.
Then took my guests out to a stellar dinner at Barn8, where I had one of the best steaks ever (and that’s saying a lot). It was an ultra-tender ribeye with a spicy mole sauce. I would never have imagined putting mole on a steak, but it was surprising and great.
Finally, my guests and I (and my brother) are going to the SDSU game again tomorrow to see them advance to the Final Four. This all takes some of the sting out of UK being absent.
In an odd twist of events, I’m going to the NCAA tourney game today in Louisville. I wish I was going to see the Cats, but…no luck. Instead, two great friends from San Diego have made the trip to Louisville to see SDSU play Alabama. They’re fans of SDSU the way I am with KY. They’re staying at our place here, so I’m off to the game with them.
Rooting for SDSU is a good consolation prize for me, and rooting against Alabama is easy. Go Aztecs!
Tomorrow I’m taking them to Barn8 for dinner. Nice drive out that way and the Hermitage Farm is wonderful.
Today is the anniversary of my Mom’s death, 41 years ago. She was 46. She was very ill for her final 5-6 years, so she only had about 20 “normal” adult years. It’s hard to believe she’s been gone that long.
In spite of what her gravestone says, her full name was Helen Susan Bates Nichols. Not sure how or why someone omitted that from the stone – I wasn’t focused on those details at the time. In fact, I went a little crazy at the time, making a string of bad decisions. I recovered after a few years, but my life’s path had been altered significantly. Sure would like to have those years to do over, but it doesn’t work that way.
That’s a hard first thought to follow, but I’ll try. I have a terrible Apple Photos problem – the application is behaving weirdly. Some photos can’t be seen – I only get a grey-ish placeholder. And others are being duplicated, en masse. I already had a duplication problem affecting 1000s of photos in the 2003-2004 era, and now the duplication is spreading. I think it’s all related to iCloud sync, but…I haven’t figured it our yet, and I’m worried about the integrity of 20 years of digital photos. 34,000 photos, though some of them are dupes. Normally I can find an answer to something like this online, but so far…nope. This all started when I transferred my desert photos from camera to laptop a week or two ago. I hate it when shit that used to work reliably suddenly just stops. It’s got to be a software update somewhere in the system, but hell if I know what triggered this.
NPR has run a lot of pieces lately on how unsustainable our western way of life is. The “American Dream” – a single family house, a couple of kids, a few cars, vacations on cruise ships, etc. – is singled out as being particularly wasteful. I’m no apologist for our western way of life, but after unpacking a few Amazon orders today, wow! I’ve got enough plastic wrapping left to fill a dumpster. I’ll single out our overuse of plastics in the modern world as one of our worst, least sustainable habits. Time to find a new packing material and stop buying bottled water.
This note from Business Insider just makes me ill. To think that rubes from all over America continue to throw money at the world’s most dangerous grifter…ugh.
Former President Donald Trump raised $1.5 million in the three days after he claimed on Truth Social that he’d be arrested Tuesday, per multiple media outlets.
Trump’s 2024 campaign confirmed the sum to Fox News, the outlet reported Wednesday. The money was said to be raised from grassroots donations.
The Washington Post, citing an anonymous source familiar with the matter, reported the same amount raised in that time frame. The resulting average of $500,000 a day is almost double the daily average from the weeks before and after he announced his bid for the White House in November.
The Trump campaign brought in $11.8 million in the six weeks before the announcement, averaging out at $280,000 a day. And in the six weeks after Trump announced his run, his campaign raised $9.5 million, or $226,000 a day.
$226K per day (!!), every day, and more when he asks for it. Essentially no restrictions on how he uses the money. No wonder he’s running again. People are just plain dumb.
Florida is on a roll. Anyone not white and male is in the crosshairs. What a miserable, miserable place it has become.
Trump’s legal woes continue. The NY prosecutor seems ready to indict (financial fraud), and the same in GA (election tampering). Now the special prosecutor in the DoJ classified documents case has said that there are “criminal violations” evident in the case. I suspect when the first indictment is announced, the others will follow quickly. Can’t happen fast enough, IMHO. I wonder, does he get Secret Service protection for a perp walk?
Someone needs to rescue DPRreview from Amazon’s ham-handed cost cutting. DPR is one of the best photography websites out there, period. I’ve read DPR for a couple of decades. If they GoFundMe the site, I would contribute. Dumb move, Amazon. But I understand – with your 2022 gross profit a mere $225 billion (up 14% from 2021), things must be feeling a little tight. I totally get it.
While I’m here in KY, the rain continues to fall in CA. Looks like this year will be Fallbrook’s 2nd highest rainfall total in 20+ years, surpassed only by the massive storms we had the first year we moved there. We’re on track to get 25 inches of rain this season, more than double our average. But to put that in perspective, Louisville, not considered a particularly wet city, gets 44 inches per year. It’s raining here today.
Turns out I completely missed the first day of spring yesterday. I had a busy day – shopping, getting bids on deck repair, playing with the grandsons, taking walks in the neighborhood, reading a book, eating at some of my favorite local venues. In general, just living. Not a bad way to spend the equinox, in retrospect.
After yesterday’s 2nd round loss by UK in the NCAA tourney, I’m forced to admit that the glory days of UK hoops dominance may never return. The game has changed and Calipari, who will be our coach for quite some time, can’t seem to figure it out. They’ll probably go on a 10-year win streak the year after I move on to the next life.
And tomorrow’s the big day, according to Trump. Tomorrow’s the day he gets arrested. That would be nice.
I landed in Louisville and found out that both Kansas and Duke were out of the NCAA tourney. Life is good, real good.
Even better, Duke was dispatched by an SEC team, Tennessee. Kansas was shown the door by an SEC team, Arkansas. The rest of the league is getting a taste of just how fucking tough the SEC is.
Fingers crossed for tomorrow. Kansas St is no pushover.
We found and bought the only vehicle in all of Southern CA that met K’s list of requirements. The only one in an area with 40 million people. A unicorn.
A 16 seed beat a #1 seed in the NCAA tourney’s first round.
And Trump is preparing to be arrested on Tuesday.
And we said it would never happen. On that third thing, he’s also preparing to make himself a martyr and call for protests (Jan 6, anyone?). That will get ugly.
It’s Game Day! I’m loving the AT&T/Jacob Toppin/UK commercials. I hope he’s getting a shitload of NIL money for those – maybe he’ll stick around another year. He has a good TV presence.
Tough day yesterday. An early workout, then a grueling two hour online meeting where I acted as counselor for a distraught colleague, then a commute into San Diego for a group interview and a board meeting. Didn’t feel like a retired guy’s day. Today, Friday, will be much less stressful.
I picked ten out of sixteen winners in the first day of the NCAA tournament. Not great, probably about average given the two shockers that almost no one picked. Hopefully I can do better today with Kentucky playing.
This quote from A Sea of Blue sums up my thoughts about Kentucky’s chances today:
While Kentucky has shown flashes of real greatness this season, theyâve also had plenty of head-scratching moments that made fans wonder why they ever got their hopes up with this team. The Wildcats have gone from good to troubling to average to worse to great and back to average all in a matter of six months.
Itâs been a crazy road with opportunity to always bounce back the next game. But now the entire season is on the line each time Kentucky steps on the court.
I have friends traveling all over the globe today. One to Hawaii, one to Italy, one to Gatlinburg, my daughter to Phoenix to join a group of Swifties, yet another returning here from Europe. The friendly skies, indeed. Bon voyage to all of them. I’m off to Louisville myself tomorrow.
We decided to watch a few of the Best Picture nominees and started with The Banshees of Inersherin. The scenery and cinematography was beautiful, but damn, what a depressing movie. Depressing and unfulfilling, leaving a story with motives unexplained and nothing but sadness at the end. That was two hours of my life I’d like to have back.
OpenAI just released ChatGPT4, and I expect it to disrupt a lot of business processes. it’s about 10x more capable than GPT3, which was pretty impressive on its own. GPT4 can write code, build websites, write documents, find errors in contracts…an amazingly wide set of capabilities. I’ll learn to use it and hopefully find some ways to automate my life with it. AI has gotten very interesting recently.
Woke up today (heh heh, yes, woke) to a crazy world. It has rained 2.5 inches overnight here (and still coming down), catapulting the 2022-2023 Fallbrook rainy season into the top five seasons in the last 25 years.
Then the stock market decided that a couple of banks melting down were worrisome enough to join them in the slide downhill. The Dow dropped 500 points immediately after someone decided that Credit Suisse was (is?) in trouble.
A San Francisco board has again asserted that it thinks $5M per qualifying person in reparations payouts is the right amount. I’m not going down this rabbit hole again except to say I’m against this kind of reparations, and I’m at least thankful that they’ve settled on such an unserious number.
The two leading GOP Presidential candidates, Desantis and Trump, have both decided that the US aiding Ukraine is a bad thing. Let’s just let Russia expand into Europe, no problem. They’re appealing to the hate and xenophobia of the MAGA base, knowing that calling anything a gift or aid to someone who doesn’t look like them riles those knuckleheads up.
Just thinking of Trump and Desantis, let’s go back to the banking thing. There’s a very distinct pattern here:
In one of their early actions in 2017, Trump and his cronies removed leadership in the US’s health system (CDC, NIH, USDA) and replaced them with unqualified partisans. The pandemic happened, and people wondered why our response was so lame.
In 2018, Trump removed the Obama-era regulations on railroad safety. Palestine Ohio thanks him.
Also in 2018, the Trumpsters removed the Obama-era Frank-Dodd Act, banking regulations intended to make sure we never have another bank meltdown like the ones in 2008. Silicon Valley Bank can thank Trump for allowing them to play with fire and burn their house down.
These aren’t opinions, these are facts. Nobody likes to be regulated, but an awful lot of regulations are there to protect US citizens. Trump’s four-year unrelenting war on regulation has had consequences, terrible consequences. These facts alone should be enough for people with any sense to oppose either of these two clowns holding office.
I just saw this. One of my favorite books, from my favorite author (Ian M. Banks), from my favorite collectible press (The Folio Society). Consider Phlebas. Looks like a birthday present.
I sooooo want to live in The Culture. A post-scarcity society spanning thousands of worlds, made possible by godlike starships who watch over things, gently. Pretty much anything and everything is possible. That’s my idea of heaven.
I also saw this on Wikipedia…boo!
Cancelled TV adaptation
Amazon announced in February 2018 that it acquired the global television rights to Consider Phlebas, to be adapted by Dennis Kelly into a television series and produced by Plan B Entertainment.[5] The project was cancelled in August 2020.[6]
I’ve been reading so much lately my eyes are blurred. But I might have to go back and reread Phlebas for the Nth time.
It’s also the third day of Daylight Savings Time, a secret plot to add to the nation’s sleeplessness. My internal clock is off worse than usual. I find that I’m less and less tolerant of time shifts – not good for someone who plans to move back and forth frequently across three time zones.
It’s also the start of the NCAA Tourney – the “First Four” play today to decide who enters the round of 64.
It’s also a personal trainer day, so I get to sweat a bit.
It’s also going to be another rainy day in Fallbrook, We’re expected to get 1-2 inches during this storm. That’s nothing compared to the 8-10 inches they’re expecting in the Monterrey area.
And finally it’s also the day a locksmith comes to our house and fixes a myriad of lock/key problems we have. We almost got locked out of the house the other day, so it’s time to update locks and keys.
Today is the day I dig through all the little things I’ve put off doing and get them done. My natural tendency to procrastinate has gotten worse over the last few months, and a couple of emails and phone calls from folks have reminded me to get busy. Already today I’ve closed the loop on 3 things I owed people, so that’s a start.
The tougher items on the list are the things I need to do on our properties. Here in Socal the fix/replace/cleanup list is HUGE. And there’s a smaller list for the Louisville home. I’m not that guy who’s always puttering around fixing things – I just don’t enjoy it. But I need to get busy, as some things here are starting to look a little redneck.
***
I entered ESPN’s March Madness bracket contest, and for the first time ever I don’t have UK going to the Final Four. It’s my way of managing my own expectations and potential disappointment. But I still feel like I’ve betrayed someone. Hope may spring eternal, but it’s taking a break at the moment.
We hurtled up and down I-15 yesterday test driving cars for K’s birthday present. It was weirdly exhausting. Sorting through details of the vehicles’ power, feel, color, features. Dealing with traffic. Driving the dealerships’ vehicles verrrry carefully.
Turns out that buying a new car (SUV) is more complicated than buying a house. With a house, it’s 80% location, 20% everything else, because that 20% can almost always be fixed or modified. With a car you’ve got one chance to get everything right. There’s no going back on things like color, engine, and seats – to name just three of about 100 variables.
We didn’t find the Goldilocks vehicle, and fortunately there’s no rush. At yesterday’s rate, we’ll still be looking on her next birthday.
***
The Oscars are tonight and I haven’t seen any of the nominees for Best Picture. I’m a little out of touch. I’d actually like to see them all, though I still have no idea what Everything, Everywhere, All at Once is even about. Today, another gloomy rainy day in Socal, might be a good time to watch one or two of the nominees. That’s about the extent of my ambition.
***
Finally, today is the day that it begins to stay weirdly light much later than expected. We have sprung (sprang?) forward. I’m not a fan of the twice annual time shift, and I’m not sure who keeps lobbying for it in Congress, or why. But like good sheep we all go along with it, year after year. Baaaaaaah.
UK lost their first and only game in the SEC tournament.
It rained another inch+ in Fallbrook.
Somehow I left my iPad in my hotel room. It’s now either in the hotel’s Lost and Found or in a housekeeper’s home.
Silicon Valley Bank crashed and burned.
I read a great book. My run of shitty picks is over.
The UK game was just heartbreaking. Kentucky men’s basketball hasn’t won a post-season game since the spring of 2019, four years ago. Just like Covid broke the world, it seems to have broken UK hoops too. We still have the NCAA tournament to look forward to, but this team is such a heartbreaker that I don’t expect much.
Leaving the iPad was just dumb. I was still sleepy when I packed up and headed downstairs for breakfast and my meetings. I’ve gotten into the habit of leaving the iPad on my bed when I get up, and I did the same in the hotel. I’d like to think that I’ll get it back, but I give it about 50/50. At least I won’t lose any files/data/pictures/etc. They’re all backed up via iCloud.
As demonstrated by my getting to finish Alex North’s amazing book The Whisper Man this morning on my Mac. The Kindle reader doesn’t care what device you use, all the books are in the cloud. The Whisper Man is a crime novel, a love story, a horror story, and 100% great. That dude knows how to conclude a chapter with a shocking sentence that requires you to turn the page, to read more. You don’t get a choice, you have to read more. Highly recommended. I’m sad that I don’t think I’ll ever write anything that good.
***
Update – I finally reached someone at the hotel, and they say they have my iPad. I’m actually surprised…restores a little faith in the goodness of people. Time for a drive back down there today to retrieve it.
It’s Friday and the third round of the SEC tournament, the day that UK gets to play. Our opponent is Vandy, and we owe them a punch in the mouth. Or two. Late game, so happy I’m watching from the Pacific time zone. Go Cats!
I’m sort of on travel; spent the night last night at a downtown San Diego hotel. I had a late business dinner on Thursday downtown, and then an 8am board meeting. Just made more sense to spend the night and avoid an hour+ commute each way.
The jobs created report for February just came out, and it was much stronger than anyone expected. Unemployment continues to fall – anyone who wants a job can get one. Naturally (?!), stocks fell on that news.
I find that I’m in a writing drought. Nothing that interesting to say, even as a blog post.
The last three days have been spent celebrating K’s birthday, with a trip to the desert to go four-wheeling in search of desert flowers (pictures later after I download and curate them), some good meals out, a trip to test-drive her birthday present, and some visits with old friends. She’s having a good birthday week.
Otherwise, there’s just not much happening that inspires me to write about it. Politicians still suck, the weather is still weird, and the days continue to blur together. The only really new thing is that I’ve gotten to the point that I now look forward to my twice-weekly sessions with our personal trainer. So much so that I may add a third session per week. I hope to get into a virtuous cycle with exercise – enjoy it more, do it more.
It’s Monday but it doesn’t feel like Monday. I’ve lost the rhythm of the days since retiring from full-time employment. For 40 years Monday was the day that I shook off the weekend’s fun, got up early, cleaned up and got dressed, and then trundled off to an office somewhere. I don’t miss that at all, quite the contrary. But it’s hard to get over the change – every day is now pretty much the same. Hard to believe I spent that long in the workweek-weekend oscillation. And now…there’s no reason to hate Monday.
I *am* closing in on a new normal. This time the oscillation is between time spent in Socal and time spent in Louisville. My goal for 2023 is at least 50% in KY, and maybe a bit more. That may also lead to changing our IRS declaration of permanent residence, leading to favorable tax treatment (I’ll take any tax benefit I can legally get). Last year I spent 13 weeks in KY (including the unplanned week between Xmas and New Year’s), exactly half of what I’m planning for 2023. So this *is* a big change. But it’s all part of a plan.
***
Update, a few hours later. It’s said no plan survives first contact with the enemy. In this case, the enemy is air travel. I’m not sure why, but checking travel dates for the next month or so, airfares between Left Coast and Louisville have become much more expensive. Maybe 50% more. Round trips I’ve gotten used to buying for $500-600 are now $900+. I checked Southwest and United. United was the worst, with fares at $2000+ round trip.
It helps that I’m planning on fewer, longer trips, but geez! I imagine Southwest is trying to recover some of its losses after the holiday debacle, so it’s no surprise that their prices are up. But the timing sucks. I’m trying to be a responsible retired guy, spending less than I did when fully employed. This doesn’t help.
The absolute best strategy looks like taking a low cost airline to Las Vegas, and then doing a SW round trip between Vegas and Louisville. There is one nonstop from Louisville to LV, so at least the return is only a single stop. Or just drive to Las Vegas. That’s kind of extreme, but it’s only 2.5 more hours than driving to any of my usual airports. And it cuts out one layover each way. Still…kinda sucks.
When you get down to root causes of this, it all goes back to Covid. Covid broke the workforce and the travel industry, and here we are in 2023 trying to get used to a system with not enough employees, flights, or competition. The survivors get stronger by charging more.
Gonna have to think about this before deciding how to proceed. I knew I should have bought that private jet <sarcasm>.
An otherwise respectable website today had an article featuring one of my absolutely favorite weird musical acts, Mojo Nixon. I haven’t thought of or listened to Mojo for a while, but he always brings a big smile to my face. He’s completely unique – no one else has his crazed, manic, rockabilly musical talent and his flair for hilarious lyrics. Here’s a sample from one of my faves, “Don Henley Must Die”.
“This is the sound of my brain…
Then I said, this is the sound of my brain on Don Henley!
Then I said, 1 2 3 4âŚ
He’s a tortured artist Used to be in the Eagles Now he whines Like a wounded beagle Poet of despair! Pumped up with hot air! He’s serious, pretentious And I just don’t care Don Henley must die! Don’t let him get back together With Glenn Frey! Don Henley must die!”
You have to see it performed to really appreciate how Mojo commits to a song.
And then there’s the eternally great “Elvis Is Everywhere”.
The lyrics to this song are just…demented. Fun. Crazed. “Elvis needs boats” as the explanation for the Bermuda Triangle. “Elvislution”. I could go on…Mojo was a helluva lot of fun.
“Man, there’s a lot of unexplained phenomenon Out there in the world. Lot of things people say What the heck’s going on? Let me tell ya! Who built the pyramids? ELVIS! Who built Stonehenge? ELVIS!
Yeah, man you see guys Walking down the street Pushing shopping carts And you think they’re talking to allah, They’re talking to themself. Man, no they’re talking to ELVIS! ELVIS! ELVIS! You know what’s going on in that Bermuda Triangle? Down in the Bermuda Triangle Elvis needs boats. Elvis needs boats. Elvis Elvis Elvis Elvis Elvis Elvis Elvis needs boats. Aahh! The Sailing Elvis! Captain Elvis! Commodore Elvis it is.
Yeah man, you know people from outer space, People from outer space they come up to me. They don’t look like like Doctor Spock. They don’t look like Klingons, All that Star Trek jive. They look like Elvis. ELVIS! Everybody in outer space looks like Elvis. Cause Elvis is a perfect being. We are all moving in perfect peace and harmony towards Elvisness Soon all will become Elvis. Everything everywhere will be Elvis. Why do you think they call it evolution anyway? It’s really Elvislution! Elvislution!
Elvis is everywhere Elvis is everything Elvis is everybody Elvis is still the king“
Lots of news this weekend from CPAC, that gathering of ghouls from what’s left of the Republican party. Foremost among the news:
Herr Trump is still their authoritarian leader
Kari Lake (!!) polled as the favorite running mate for Trump
Trump said he will run even if he is under indictment (likely)
A Trump-Lake ticket would be the ultimate reality-denier team. Both are pathological liars capable of saying pretty much anything. They would be loved by the 30% forever-Trump cult, so they would start the election with that as a voter base.
The Democrats need a practical, votable candidate – not an 80-something success story. I love what Biden’s done the last two years, but we need to take his age, stamina and cognition off the table for voters. Who can take on the Reality Denial team? That’s the biggest question for 2024, and we’re running out of time for the answer.
This is alarming. The H5N1 bird flu virus has gone species hopping in Peru, killing loads of sea lions. Species hopping indicates mutation, and H5N1 has already proven its ability to infect Homo Sapiens.
While there have been 135 humans who have died from H5N1 since January 2003, all of these cases are thought to have been the result of direct transmission from human contact with infected birds. If we begin to see human-to-human transmission, and if the high death rate we’ve seen so far in human cases holds (WHO puts that rate currently at 56%), we’ll be in for a situation that’s almost too dire to comprehend.
56%! Covid had a mortality rate of 2-3% – 56% would be apocalyptic. Let’s hope that H5N1 decides not to bother with human-human infection.
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Kentucky plays their final regular-season hoops game today against Arkansas. Fingers crossed for a final W in a weird season. Oddsmakers have UK losing to Ark in a close game. Hope they’re wrong.
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Another great musician dies – David Lindley. His work on Jackson Browne songs were and are perfection.
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I’m in a book rut – reading, not writing. (Actually, kinda both, but this is about reading). I keep selecting Kindle books to read that suck. I don’t know if it’s my own bad choices or Amazon’s recommendation engine, but half of the last 10-12 books have been just awful. I gave the last one 1-star, something I almost never do just due to empathy for the author. I think I have to start selecting books at random to (a) explore new authors/genres, and (b) to reset Amazon’s recommendation algorithm. Wish me luck as I wander off the reservation.
