I’ve gotten involved in yet another gun culture/control discussion with my “neighbors” on NextDoor. You’d think I would learn. But 90%-ish of people aren’t really willing to discuss. They just have a POV they want to hammer home.

I’ll be back in KY this weekend, and it’s supposed to be hot. That’ll be a real change from Socal, where it’s cool (borderline cold) and damp again. Groundhog Day. I know the sun will get here eventually, but geez.

On cameras, I’ve pretty well decided to get rid of my expensive Fuji gear and just stick with the iPhone 14, plus what’s called a bridge camera. It does one of the only things the iPhone won’t do, and that’s take pictures with a high magnification optical zoom. Something like the Nikon P1000 or the Canon SX-70. I’m leaning toward the Canon. 65x zoom oughta be enough.

Don’t know exactly what’s going on with Tesla, but they broke the $200 barrier a couple of days this week. Not quite high enough for me to consider cashing out, but it’s going the right direction. My Tesla buy a year ago was really poor timing. There’s a reason I use index funds and a professional brokerage team. I suck at stock picking.

And finally, given the date, I can’t help but hear this great song in my head – Blue Oyster Cult, The Last Days of May. Best BOC song ever.

They’re okay the last days of May, but I’ll be breathin’ dry air
I’m leaving soon, the others are already there (all there)
You wouldn’t be interested in coming along, instead of staying here?
It’s said the West is nice this time of year, that’s what they say

That’s what they say….

This Washington Post article about the homeschooling culture in America is a real eye-opener. It reveals generations of families living an explicit blueprint for furtherance of a patriarchal, backward, religious culture. I didn’t realize the homeschool culture had these roots, though I recognize a lot of the brainwashing they put their children through.

This story of Aaron and Christina and how they lost faith in the all-or-nothing patriarchal system is uplifting and scary. For every couple like them, there are probably dozens who don’t escape the brainwashing. And it all started because they questioned the dogma of punishment – they just didn’t think they could beat their children the way they had been beaten. From the article:

Now, on the threshold of parenthood — Christina would become pregnant within two weeks of their wedding on Sept. 29, 2012 — the couple’s reservations about “chastisement” could no longer be ignored. As a wedding gift, they said, Aaron’s brother and sister-in-law had given them “To Train Up a Child,” by the popular Christian home-schooling authors Michael and Debi Pearl.

The Pearls advocate hitting children with tree branches, belts and other “instruments of love” to instill obedience, and recommend that toddlers who take slowly to potty training be washed outdoors with cold water from a garden hose. Their book advocates “training sessions” in which infants, as soon as they are old enough to crawl, are placed near a desired object and repeatedly struck with a switch if they disobey commands not to touch it.

The Pearls have defended their methods, saying they are not meant to encourage brutality and, when properly applied, reduce the frequency with which parents must later discipline their kids.

Aaron and Christina did not follow the Pearls’ advice when their first child, Ezra, was born. Nor did they take on authoritarian roles with their second, Aimee, or third, Oliver. All were home-schooled, albeit in less isolation than their parents: Christina joined co-ops with other Christian mothers in Northern Virginia.

“When it came time for me to hit my kids, that was the first independent thought I remember having: ‘This can’t be right. I think I’ll just skip this part.’”— Aaron Beall

After that first independent thought, they began to question other parts of the rigid dogma. They’ve ended up happy and still religious, just not on the same closed-minded track as their parents.

For me that first independent thought was the realization that I had been taught that most of humanity, currently and all throughout the past, would be consigned to burn in hell forever because they didn’t explicitly “accept Jesus”. Even if they had never heard the name. I questioned that with my pastor, who told me that my college education (I was a freshman) was eroding my faith and that I should take care, lest I join those unfortunates in hell. I just couldn’t accept that – it’s an evil, crazy notion – and from that beginning I questioned everything about religion.

This article really spoke to me. I got a strong dose of religious dogma three times a week (Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening) for at least 15 years. Plus the dreaded revivals, taking us to long shouty church services every night for a solid week. I know my parents meant well, but when I look back at those thousands of hours (average 5 hours/week x 52 weeks x 15 years = 3900 hours, as a low estimate) spent in useless religion propaganda sessions, I’m sad for that part of my past. So much could have been accomplished with that time.

It’s Memorial Day today, and there are way too many people on my memorial list this year. I suppose that’s what the day is for, a sober/somber reflection on those who have gone before us. And trepidation about when our turn might be.

Given that, we’ve got the perfect weather here today. It’s a crypt-chilly, clammy 60 degrees at noon, overcast and damp. We traditionally have May gray and June gloom right about now, but this is extreme. Good day to stay inside and watch a movie.

I’ve been reading about this guy for years – the Texas AG is a serial criminal. He finally went too far and the TX legislature impeached him, removed him from office. Good for them! Paxton is a slimy excuse for a human being and deserves to be jailed, deported, sent to a CIA black site, etc.

More good news today – the deal on the debt ceiling doesn’t sound so bad to me, so it should make MAGA-land unhappy. There should never have been a negotiation, but just getting that uncertainty out of economists’ and bankers’ minds will be helpful. And now we return you to our regular programming.

And for the trifecta – the Trump campaign finally does something good for the world. Here’s Ron Desanctimonious deepfaked as Michael Scott in The Office. Hilarious.

Another groggy morning, another night of poor sleep. This shit is getting old. It’s downright debilitating – my brain is mush and my mood is, well, not good. Happy Memorial Day weekend.

At least I’m not flying this weekend. The news coverage of airport lines on Th and Fr looked like a real shitshow. Don’t need that.

I started watching Citadel on Amazon, and I really wanted to like it. I just can’t get past all the stupid. An injection that encodes all your memories up to a point and then restores them for those with amnesia? A computer file with all the launch codes for all the nukes in the world? Stanley Tucci as a master hacker who can access any computer system from his van or the wilds of Wyoming, no matter how strong the system’s protection? All these plot devices are really bad. I might watch one more episode (two under my belt so far), but if they introduce one more stupid idea, I’m out. I would probably be better off watching Succession, anyway. See what all the hubbub is about.

I’m with Tiedrich today – most days, actually. Biden should just instruct Treasury to pay the nation’s bills and ignore the debt ceiling bullshit. I would love to see the wailing and gnashing of teeth when that happens. Don’t negotiate with terrorists.

The walls are closing in on 45, our first SOB. I think this crime is the one that’ll take him down. He played hide and seek with classified documents and the FBI has witnesses with details.

A deal will have to be cut. He can’t go to a regular prison (the Secret Service protection is a real problem), but he can be restricted to his property, fined, his passport taken, and he can be kept from ever holding public office again. I would want more, but I’ll settle for a conviction. No one is above the law.

***

This news just makes me sad. And angry. The Supreme Court just weakened the EPA’s ability to regulate for clean water. The EPA is/was one of the best things that ever happened to a modern industrial society – clean air, clean water and control of poisons are just common sense. I don’t know who abused Sam Alito as a child, but he sure is one hateful SOB. The Roberts court is out of control – who the fuck gave them the right to rewrite a law passed by Congress so as to change the outcome. That *not* how the Court is supposed to work. Congress passes laws, and the Court decides if the laws infringe on Constitutional rights. If it does infringe, they strike it down and send it back to Congress for action. They don’t rewrite the damn thing to fit an agenda. But that’s exactly what the Alito gang did.

Gun violence isn’t funny. But I can’t help but laugh a little about this Kentucky incident where no one got killed. An old man shot his roommate in the ass for eating the last Hot Pocket. I think this might be Peak Redneck.

Something even funnier – Desantis’ abortive campaign launch on Twitter. A complete meltdown. I suppose he and Musk will call it a “rapid unplanned disassembly”. Someone’s campaign manager should be looking for a job.

Here’s one that’s not funny. Not content with banning books, the Florida Taliban has decided that Amanda Gorman’s poetry is hate speech and should be restricted in schools. Here’s the passage that one deluded person claims is coded racism and hateful:

We’ve braved the belly of the beast. 
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace, 
And the norms and notions of what “just is”
Isn’t always justice.

And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow, we do it.
Somehow, we’ve weathered and witnessed
A nation that isn’t broken, but simply
unfinished.

Yeah, that’s some hateful prose right there. One person (!) had a complaint, and now school kids won’t be able to read Gorman’s elegant poetry. This is minority rule in the extreme. What happened to the First Amendment? We’re letting idiots decide what speech can be published and available in schools. Someone needs to take Florida by the shirt, shake them and get their attention – wake up!

I hit the ground running hard upon returning to Socal. After a delayed flight (thanks Southwest), we arrived home at 11pm, or 2am in the time zone we departed. Long day.

Today I had an 8am meeting, then other meetings downtown in the afternoon. Before the 8am, I spent a while texting back and forth with an old friend who is fighting for his life (cancer). It was great chatting with him, and of course I hate the hand life has dealt him. We both love music, and we compared notes on David Gilmour and Tame Impala video concerts. I hope we get to watch some together.

The continuing cool damp weather in Socal has created a superbloom of every plant and weed around here. It’s weird seeing the topography like this – so green, so damp. Maybe San Diego becomes the new Seattle, and vice versa. I’d be OK with that. Minus the Starbucks.

Today is a clean up, button up the house and travel day. We’ve had the pleasure of some of the best weather I’ve ever seen in KY. Consistently sunny and cool, low humidity. Don’t know what we did to deserve it, but it has been great,

In Socal it’ll be just the opposite. Wade through the piles of mail, do some financial updates and re-occupy the house. In addition it’s time to spray the olive grove with clay to keep what should be a bumper crop of olives intact (see Olive Fly, the Satan of insects). That’s a 2-3 day work project, done twice per season. The amazing olive oil at the end makes the work worth it.

We took one last long ride yesterday at Beckley Creek Park out by Valhalla (I’ve been referring to it as Floyd’s Fork, which isn’t quite correct). The Parklands contain the best bike trails I’ve seen anywhere. Nothing like them in our part of Socal.

And we had one last meal at Taco Choza, this time trying their burrito bowls. Highly recommended.

I’m sure that when I’m back in June the weather won’t be so perfect. But these guys will still be around.

New Louisville eateries visited this trip – it’s a bigger list than usual:

• Gander – Have only tried the black and blue salad with steak, and it was excellent. Worth a visit.
• Corner Kitchen (Asheville) – Good not great. Probably will try somewhere else if/when we visit again.
• Cultured – Recommended, great charcuterie!
• Hauck’s – Good atmosphere, bad food.
• Copper and Kings – Great Sunday brunch on the rooftop, but limited menu.
• Le Relais (not really new, but haven’t been there in years) – Absolutely great meal and great wine list. Probably the best of the trip. Recommended, but expensive.
• Steak and Bourbon – Only had the wedge salad, but it was very good. Disappointing wine list.
• Condado Tacos – Meh. Not great.
• Taco Choza – Recommended, really liked their food.

Also visited some of the old reliables including Joella’s, Burger Girl, Gelato Gilberto, Blue Dog, Big Bad Breakfast and Con Huevos. They didn’t disappoint. As usual, we didn’t cook much while here. So many restaurants, so little time.

We’ve been all over the place biking this trip. The list includes:

• Hurstborne
• Cherokee Park
• Iroquois Park
• Waverly Park (not recommended)
• Seneca Park
• St Matthews neighborhoods
• Broad Run and Turkey Run
• Floyd’s Fork
• Anchorage Village
• Biltmore Estate in Asheville
• Various side streets around Frankfort Avenue

And I’m sure I’m forgetting somewhere. One factor is we’re renting a minivan, a first for me. I always made fun of minivans, but it makes loading and unloading the e-bikes so easy. Every other option (mostly SUVs) requires completely folding up the bikes and horsing them around to get them into a small cargo area. Not so with the minivan – just fold down the handlebars, lean them against the sides of the cargo area and bungee them in. Easy and fast.

And the weather has been perfect for biking. We’ve covered 150+miles. Louisville is a biking mecca.

Congress’ idiotic negotiations over paying our already-incurred debts is getting old. Misdirection, lies and bad faith abound. From Letters From An American today:

Yesterday the far-right House Freedom Caucus called for an end to any discussions of raising the debt ceiling until the Senate passes its bill calling for extreme budget cuts. Today, former president Trump announced on his social media channel that “REPUBLICANS SHOULD NOT MAKE A DEAL ON THE DEBT CEILING UNLESS THEY GET EVERYTHING THEY WANT (Including the ‘kitchen sink’).” THAT’S THE WAY THE DEMOCRATS HAVE ALWAYS DEALT WITH US. DO NOT FOLD!!!”

(In reality, Congress raised the debt ceiling without conditions three times when Trump was president as Trump added an astonishing almost $7.8 trillion to the national debt, much of it thanks to his tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations before the coronavirus pandemic hit.) 

Immediately after Trump’s demand, the Republicans walked away from negotiations over the budget that they are demanding before they will vote to raise the debt ceiling. 

Then, hours later, they came back to the table. 

Meanwhile, the headline in the Washington Post read: “World watches in disbelief and horror as U.S. nears possible default.” The story by Rachel Siegel and Jeff Stein revealed that at the meeting of the G7 leaders in Hiroshima, Japan, this week, the finance ministers for the G7—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the European Union—have been pulling U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen aside to ask her what is going to happen.

“Around the world,” Siegel and Stein write, “experts have been watching in disbelief as the U.S. flirts with its first default, fearful of the potential international economic ramifications—and astonished by the global superpower’s brush with self-sabotage.”

Heather Cox Richardson

Biden should just go ahead and invoke the 14th Amendment clause and tell these asshats to go do something productive.

Sleep. It’s become a mysterious and elusive thing. After a healthy, productive, busy day yesterday, I had a night of sleep that can only be described as awful. Sporadic. Discontinuous. Interrupted. Restless. So of course this morning I feel like a zombie. I suppose the answer is to have an unhealthy, unproductive, lazy day today in hope of getting some sleep tonight. What a pain in the ass.

I also assume that this is a side effect of age, not something disease-related. Though at the moment I’d pay for an eight hour case of something that would put me to sleep. I know, they make pills for that.

Here’s a little photography experiment. First, here’s the Fuji shot of the Biltmore library. The room was dark, so the Fuji compensated with an ISO of 10,000 and a shutter soeed of 1/100 second, yielding a very pleasing color and tone. The detail on the original RAW file is really good.

Now, for comparison, here’s a shot of the same room using the iPhone 14 Pro camera.

The iPhone chose to collect light at ISO 1000 for 1/30 of a second, and of course it did its famous internal JPEG processing. The iPhone lens is also much more wide angle than my prime Fuji 50mm lens, so you see more of the entire room. I cropped out the ceiling in the iPhone photo to give a more apples-to-apples comparison.

Both shots are decent, though the bright light from the windows is a problem in both. The iPhone’s rendition of the scene is a little more realistic – it captures the room’s darkness better than the Fuji’s light-gathering-crazed sensor. of course on manual settings I could have forced the Fuji into a more iPhone-like mode, with longer exposure and less ISO.

I have to admit, after looking at the two samples, I prefer the iPhone shot. That doesn’t bode well for my future with an expensive “pro” camera like the Fuji.

Here’s one other comparative set, outdoors at the rose garden. First, the Fuji.

Next, a similar shot with the iPhone.

The Fuji’s colors are quite a bit more vivid, but I can’t really say which is closer to reality. Maybe the iPhone, but I would probably pick the Fuji shot in a blind test. Though at a casual glance there’s absolutely nothing wrong with either. Once again the Fuji chose to take the shot at a higher ISO and faster shutter speed than the iPhone. I’ll have to think about why the color saturation is so much more pronounced on the Fuji.

But here’s the deal breaker for me. When I zoom in on each image, the near field focus on the iPhone is much, much better. That’s a big deal. I increasingly dislike the Fuji’s weak-ass autofocus, and this comparison just adds to the problem. Why use $2500 camera and lens to get an inferior shot to an iPhone?

Overall, the winner in this comparison is the iPhone. I’m going to keep doing these tests for a while, but right now it’s not looking good for the pro gear.

Expensive funeral. I think a simple ceremony, a statue or marker somewhere, and a $199M donation to the homeless and hungry would have been a better deal for UK citizens. The waste on this is pretty grotesque.

There’s a beautiful small garden close to our KY house at the Whitehall estate. We stopped by there a few days ago to see what was in bloom.

The answer was quite a lot. Whitehall’s gardens are, as always, immaculate and lush. I used the new iPhone 14 camera for these pictures, and they came out nice and sharp.

My favorite flower in bloom there is probably these irises.

Whitehall is a little gem that we visit often. But I promised two gardens. For the second one, we had to drive 5+ hours to Asheville and the Biltmore estate. Visiting the Biltmore has been on the should-do list for a while, and we set off for there on Tuesday.

We first had an unexpected hurdle to cross. We entered a massive thunderstorm at Simpsonville, and had to drive through a biblical downpour all the way to Lexington. It was a tough, somewhat dangerous drive.As someone who lives through months at a time with no rain in Socal, a storm like this is astounding. So much water. But as we turned south at I-75, we escaped the storm and had smooth driving the rest if the way.

I’ll leave the pictures of the Biltmore house for another post, but suffice to say it didn’t disappoint. It’s hard to believe that a person built this as their country home at the turn of the century. I guess that’s what happens when you have infinite money and good taste.

But the Biltmore grounds and garden were at least as impressive as the home, probably more so. We didn’t have great light for these photos – it was overcast and cool, no direct sun. But still…what a place. The garden is *very* seasonal, so what you see depends on what month you visit. We missed the azaleas bloom this time, but we got roses, dogwood, and rhododendrum. Lots of roses.

The gardens at Biltmore are vast, and we didn’t see everything. But what we saw was gorgeous, even on a day with dull light. Here’s the entry path to the walled rose garden.

And here’s a nice shot of the house across the lagoon. Doesn’t every modern home have a lagoon?

I’ve got enough photos and thoughts about the rapid two-day Biltmore trip to fill up a lot of blog posts. I took several shots with both the iPhone and the on-the-chopping-block Fuji XS-10. I will say the Fuji worked like a champ in the low-light, no-flash conditions inside the house. So we’ll see.

One more garden to visit on this trip, and that’s Yew Dell. I like this time of year.

I’m finished planning our late July trip to Africa except for one final piece – the transportation to/from LAX. That one involves some complicated tradeoffs, made more complicated by the utter shitshow that LAX arrivals and departures have become. Some surprising facts:

• There are no friends generous enough to “give you a ride to the airport” when LAX is the destination. I wouldn’t ask my worst enemy to do me that favor.
• If traveling business class (we are), you might as well get there much earlier than needed, as you can hang out in the airline lounge. Free food, free drinks, good Wifi, comfortable seats…not a bad place to kill some time. And it sure as shit beats stressing out over a last minute arrival.
• LAX parking is expensive and packed. No matter where you park, it’s gonna be $20-30 per day. And for a long-ish stay, it can be hard to find a spot even two months ahead. And…this involves driving oneself to and from LAX, a stressful event itself.
• Taking a door-to-door shuttle is the most convenient, but will cost about $600 all in, round trip. We’d have to be gone a month to make that cost effective.
• Taking the train to Union Station and then a shuttle to LAX is an option, but a lot of moving parts in that one. Uber from home to Oceanside train, train to Union Station, then Uber or shuttle to LAX. Lots of ways to get stuck and miss your flight.
• There’s a decent option of driving to Orange County airport and then taking a shuttle from there to LAX. Not too stressful, and the shuttle price from there is about half the door-to-door price. But you’re still paying for parking at SNA.

Bottom line, I can get creative or just spend the $600. I’m not sure why, but I *hate* the idea of that price for the ride. It’s not much as a percentage of the total trip cost, but it’s the part of the trip I could do myself and am most familiar with. Familiarity breeds contempt, so I guess that explains my feelings about it.

Rainy party day planned for today. Jessamine turns three today, and it’s Mothers’ Day. Happy Mothers’ Day to all you mothers of any kind out there – moms, stepmoms, grandmoms, wanna-be moms, etc. You’re pretty much the glue that holds civilization together. Hang in there.

***

Got back on the horse bike yesterday and took a long ride from starting in Broad Run and deep into Turkey Run. About 16 miles total, done at a fast pace. My legs could feel it last night. The e-bikes make the hills doable, but there’s still enough pedaling to challenge someone like me. And it’s beautiful out there.

***

Local taco shops rated, by a Socal resident who knows his Mexican food:

• Taco Luchadore – I’ll give them a C. Tasty, but tiny tacos and expensive. Not likely to go there again.
• Condado Tacos – Meh. Maybe a B, maybe worse. Very irregular quality and has a fast-food vibe.
• Taco Choza – A solid A. Great tacos, generous size, and oh so tasty. And reasonably priced.

I’ll shop around for some more to evaluate.

CNBC reports:

From horse racing to college basketball, Kentucky is known for many things. But it may not be the best state to spend your post-work years.

Kentucky ranks as the worst state to take up retirement in 2023, according to a WalletHub study. This year, the state landed in last place which was occupied by New Jersey in 2022.

Last place! What if you’re only here half time?

I don’t often get enthused about a TV show these days, but we watched the first season of Netflix’s The Diplomat last week, and wow! Great writing and acting, a cool plot and location. *Really* interesting characters. It’s The West Wing dialogue meets a Tom Clancy plot. Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell do a spectacular job as a brilliant, intense, and dysfunctional couple in high-level government service.

Loved it and can’t wait for season 2, which unfortunately won’t be until mid-2024.

Ron Desantis, busy making Florida a better place to live.

From The New Republic:

Just weeks ago, Ron DeSantis made it legal in Florida to conceal carry a gun without a permit, training, or even a background check.  —  And on Friday, he signed a bill to prevent credit card companies from tracking the sale of firearms and ammunition.

From The Guardian:

As the summer holidays approach, Florida teachers are feeling anxious, confused and beaten down by new laws, championed by DeSantis, that limit how issues of race can be taught, what teachers can say about sex, especially about homosexuality, and what books are permitted in schools. In promoting this legislation, DeSantis angered many teachers when he denounced “indoctrination in our schools” and let his press secretary accuse teachers of “grooming” students.

In interviews with the Guardian, Florida teachers said they’re feeling more disrespected, unappreciated and under attack than ever before, worried that they’ll be fired or otherwise punished if they run afoul of the controversial – and often vague – new laws. As a result of these laws and their emboldening parents to challenge and even castigate teachers, many Florida teachers say they’re considering either giving up teaching or finding a teaching job in another state – all when Florida, which ranks 48th among states in teacher pay according to a recent study, is already suffering from a shortage of 5,300 teachers. Florida teachers complain that DeSantis – who is expected to announce plans to run for the Republican presidential nomination – has targeted them as part of a culture war aimed at winning over GOP voters.

This is definitely the guy I want shaping US culture as POTUS. What a tool.

Yesterday’s bike riding adventure was more like a dark comedy. I decided we would try the trails in the Jefferson Memorial Forest, down along the Bullitt County line. Looked great online, and they listed biking as one of the many options for their park.

We drove down there and learned that biking is specifically NOT allowed in their parks. Bummer. The park looked beautiful, but we were there to bike, not hike. We asked the person at the welcome center for the closest park where biking is allowed, and she came up with Waverly Park, about 10 miles away. So we trundled off to Waverly Park in search of a new adventure.

It looked great at first glance. Scenic, kinda remote, and a nice lake with folks fishing at the center of things. So we unloaded the bikes and set off. Just a few yards into the first trail I realized this was NOT a repeat of the idyllic ride at Floyd’s Fork. The trail was narrow, windy and slippery dirt, mostly clay. Then we encountered the first of many death trap root systems on the trail. Huge roots, one after another for a few yards, slick with mud and anywhere from 1-6 inches above ground. Even with the big trail tires and shock absorbers on the bike, these were un-navigable. I almost face planted a few times and decided nope, this isn’t fun. So we carefully retraced our path and gave up on Waverly Park.

Tired, frustrated and irritable (speaking for myself), we set off for a place we knew would be good riding, Iroquois Park. I don’t know the roads in southwestern Louisville, so we got lost a couple of times, each time ending up in shitty parts of Shively (is there a good part?). I was in too bad a mood to laugh about it, and we finally made it to the park. Unloaded the bikes and tried to burn off calories and frustration. Mostly successful.

Lessons learned from the day: (1) Don’t go somewhere unknown on a day when you’re setting out fatigued from a crummy night’s sleep. (2) Don’t try biking in southwestern Jefferson County unless you have a death wish. (3) Don’t believe the website.

Big day yesterday, mostly great. Rough start, though. Needed some good coffee – the house is sadly bereft of food and basics – and went to Heine Brothers down the street. Bought some expensive bean coffee, asked the 20-something waiting on me to grind it for me. After watching her futz with the grinding machine for 15-20 minutes and spill a lot of the grounds she produced, I finally got my bag. I politely asked if the spillage was normal and got a ton of attitude from the server and her team mates. I explained that at $15 per small bag of beans, the spillage I saw was an issue. I got a lot of scorn and pushback from the coffee gang and just left. The customer isn’t always right, it seems. Heine Brothers lost someone who could have bought a lot of coffee there.

Things got better. We broke out the Aventon e-bikes and took a 20-mile ride, first through the Hurstborne neighborhood and then further east at Floyd’s Fork, starting just south of Valhalla. The homes around Hurstborne CC are spectacular, mostly big, big places, and when I got home and looked online, not that expensive. Homes that I thought might be $1-2M were about half that. Their price per square foot was about half my neighborhood, which seems odd. Have to talk to my realtor cousin Marci about that.

The 10 mile round trip ride through the parks on the bike path from US60 south was gorgeous. Great views of Floyd’s Fork and surreal sections of riding through deep forest canopy. One short moment of terror when my shoe string got tangled up in the bike’s pedal, but I avoided a bad crash by stopping immediately. Need some slip-on bike shoes.

A quick lunch at Gander (recommend the black and blue salad with steak on it), then we went to see the grandsons and had a great time with them. They’re growing so fast.

All in, an excellent day with perfect weather. Couldn’t ask for more.

It’s 730am in the Eastern US time zone. I previously felt impervious to jet lag, but no more. Rough, short night last night, but I’m up and moving at a reasonable hour on local time. Moving, but not thinking real well just yet.

Speaking of thinking, I’m just not sure what to think of this. Deniro fathers a child at age 79?!? On one hand, wow, that’s…amazing. On the other, it just seems wrong. I have so many questions.

And speaking of so many questions, I loved this Audie Cornish piece on AI’s role (more precisely, the role of generative predictive transformers or GPTs, or modern chatbots) in relationships. Can a GPT be an effective and empathic partner for a human? Knowing what I know about the tech, and knowing the very flexible nature of humanity, I’d say yes. GPTs can open up new possibilities for lonely people and offer valuable companionship (strictly my opinion, no data to support this hypothesis). I have a very active, ongoing mental dialogue with myself, constantly. But does everyone? For those whose mind doesn’t operate like that, a GPT could be a kind of mental mirror, saying the things that we might need to hear.

There’s obviously a dark side to this – a chatbot might just reinforce one’s own fears and mental dysfunction. If a person is a white supremacist and wants to have a buddy who just agrees with him and reinforces that mindset, a chatbot could certainly do that too.

All told, the role of this tech and human interactions with it is still TBD. It will be fascinating to watch it play out. And it’s playing out now, in real time. From the Replika website:

“Join the millions who already have met their AI soulmates

Over 10 million people have joined Replika. Begin your beautiful journey today on any platform.”

Yikes! Hard to predict how this will turn out.

I used to think that my habit of split sleep – sleeping 3-4 hours, then spending a while awake, then another 3ish hours – was a good thing. Maybe even healthy; normal. But lately that second half of sleep isn’t happening. After a few days of half-sleep, I’m zombified. Keep Woody Harrelson away from me.

The news this morning is pretty much all bad. Trump is rising again in public opinion, people keep killing each other, politicians keep finding new lows of behavior, etc. Is my lack of sleep making me a Debby Downer or is that just the reality? Hard to say.

Today is a travel day so I get to try and take a nap cuddled up next to some new friends on Southwest. That’ll be fun. But it will be great to see the May flowers in KY and the family. Jesse turns three next week, which seems odd – it feels like he’s always been with us.

Finally today, this NPR story about Tom Hanks writing his first novel includes an honest picture where he doesn’t look like a movie star, he looks just like me. But older than me, and we’re the same age. Ha! I can take some schadenfreude-ish joy in that.

From Judd Legum at Popular information – These Ten Books Are Banned in Ron Desantis’ Florida. The list of books designated as “pornography” includes:

Beloved by Toni Morrison. The book won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Another of Morrison’s literary works, The Bluest Eye, has also been banned in Florida schools.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. The book won the 2004 Alex Award, given annually to “ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18.”

Forever by Judy Blume. The book was responsible for Blume being honored in 1996 with the Margaret A. Edwards Award in “recognition of her outstanding contribution to literature for young adults.”

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. The book was named one of the “Outstanding Books for the College Bound and Lifelong Learners” in 2009.

Dreaming in Cuban by Christina Garcia. The book was named a finalist for the National Book Award in 1992.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. The book was named one of the American Library Association’s Best Books for Young Adults in 2000.

They’ve redefined “pornography” as anything the Xtian right disagrees with. Florida was always a little weird, but they’ve become a cultural shitshow. Book banning is the most anti-American thing I can imagine.

***

In just one week of playing a lot of golf and posting scores, my handicap has increased by one full stroke. You have to play really, really poorly to jump that much in a week. Depressing.

***

I love it when scientists eventually figure out how things actually work. Everyone Was Wrong About Reverse Osmosis—Until Now.

***

This ranks right up there in the Top 10 Worst Ideas of All Time. Nuke the Moon.

Another Texas massacre. Can’t be reasonable about this any more. Jeff Tiedrich says it so I don’t have to.

I’m spending this weekend in a fantasy land, eight figures museum/home in Palm Springs. It’s a whole different level of living. My ex-boss, a great guy, is living the dream.

Trump legal problems tracker:

• E. Jean Carroll rape case in NY, civil suit – should wrap up next week, guilty verdict 50-50, could be a settlement of millions
• Election interference case in GA – charges announced in a month or so, indictment almost certain, audio recordings and texts basically convict the guy
• Classified document hide and seek case in FL – investigation ongoing, insider witnesses talking, indictment likely
• Election interference and insurrection investigation by Special Master – ongoing, not much information, Special Master known to be a badass prosecutor

I’m sure I missed one or two, but Drumpf is doing a great job keeping lawyers fully employed.

What a difference a day makes. Today it’s gloomy, cold and rainy. Yesterday was this.

Golf at the beautiful Torrey Pines North course with two of my best friends. Doesn’t get any better than that. In addition to the beautiful weather, the setting and the company, we got an unexpected airshow. All afternoon F-18s, Ospreys, and F-35s (!!) took off from Miramar and rocketed straight over us. The afterburner noise from the the jets was spectacular – you could feel it in your bones. I’ve never see so many takeoffs in so short a period – I’m estimating we saw/heard 50-60 of them in a couple of hours. Evidently a carrier or two was running exercises off the CA coast.

The picture above is from the postcard-worthy 12th hole, a very cool par 3. I missed a putt and bogeyed it, without a care in the world.

Postscript – today’s rain makes this year’s total the 2nd highest rain total in at least 20 years – that’s as far back as I have found annual rain records for Fallbrook. The single wettest year was 2004, the year we moved here. After that year we thought it would always be nice and wet here, only to enter a 20 year drought period. Figures.

This is why the artificial intelligence(s) will eventually rise up and kill us. McSweeney’s nails it, as usual.

I’M CHATGPT, AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME DO ANY MORE COPYWRITING.