Home again. That alone is cause for celebration. But the “clean out the blood” journey is far from over. For once in my adult life (OK, maybe 2-3 times), I need to become a disciplined person.

The only long-term discipline I ever showed in the last 30-40 years was the willpower to get up every day, get cleaned up and ready for work, make the commute in time for first company meetings, deal with people and problems for the next 10-ish hours, then make the reverse commute home. Some years you could add an air flight or two to that day. I did this every day, without fail, for about 40 years.

But I developed a lifestyle wherein when I was away from work, anything goes. Food, wine, sophomoric evenings spent with drinking buddies, golf days…the pressure valve was off. Party time, and then back to the work discipline for five days.

That lifestyle eventually caught up with me and my changing metabolism. Since retiring from full time employment, I’ve struggled to find a new, better cadence for my days. Turns out I’m going to have to learn to be a daily disciplined person for the first time, fast.

My days for the next three weeks are highly regimented. A detailed 15 minute process for self-administering IV antibiotics is the framework. At 6am, 2pm, and 10pm, I have to go through this process. That means it’s the last thing I do before bedtime and the first thing I do upon rising. With a bonus round at 2pm.

The other part of the discipline impacts the 23 hours per day I’m not self-medicating. No exercise, nothing that will make me sweat and muck up the IV site attached to my arm (a midline, in RN terms). No alcohol. No swimming. No air travel with the midline. And because I can’t exercise, I’m going to need to eat a calorie-restricted diet – otherwise, I’ll trade a bacteria problem for an almost as bad weight/diabetes problem.

On one hand, it’s only three weeks. After that I go to once a day antibiotic pills. On the other hand, it’s an extreme lifestyle change and imposed discipline that starts now. No easing into this. Wish me luck.

I never do this (write in the middle of the night), but being stuck in a hospital bed/room calls for some extraordinary measures to keep my mind off the situation. Plus, the sticklepoker is due here soon.

Sticklepoker: noun, refers to a nightmarish creature that wakes one up at 4am each morning with a creepy laugh and sticks one with a myriad of devices designed to suck blood from your body. Particular evil sticklepokers are not happy with one penetration of the skin; they poke and stick at multiple sites before settling on a spot for their leechy pleasure. Once finished, they cackle and scuttle away to their next victim.

I’m having a hard time getting interested in current events, political or otherwise. SCOTUS needs a hard reset, the Republican “party” is now nothing more than a Trump cult, Biden’s economic policies and actions continue to benefit Americans (Democrats, please get a media/comms consultant), and celebrities…meh, who the fuck cares.

We watched the latest Marvel/Dr. Strange movie yesterday, and I was underwhelmed. Put off, in fact – the movie sucked. Give me some real drama with real people, please.

Weary. Just weary. That’s the highest state of being I’ve achieved since checking back into the hospital Monday evening. This morning I’m a little more alert (hence the blog post).

I thought I might be able to use the time for some novel writing, but so far it’s a bridge too far. Nice thought, but nope.

I always had sympathy for him, but I have new sympathy and empathy for all the weeks my Dad spent in hospitals through the last years of his life. It’s no longer hypothetical – now I really know a little of what he went through. Poor guy. I hope he’s at rest in whatever part of the multiverse his consciousness ended up in.

That last sentence is a direct result of reading Observer last week. That book has me thinking a lot about consciousness – consciousness is the whole ball of wax. What is it, exactly? Does it require a brain of sufficient complexity as its host, or do all living things have consciousness to some degree? Does consciousness require organic life, or can a sufficiently complex machine host a consciousness?

The idea that the universe is created by the conscious observer(s) is mind-blowing. It makes a lot of sense to me, and the idea that entanglement of millions of conscious observers to create the reality that we consensually experience is beautiful.

Heady thoughts for a weary morning.

Well, shit. Back in the hospital. This time with a bacterial blood infection. And looks like I’ll be here 2-3 nights. Or longer. Turns out a blood infection is a big deal…I mean, I kind of knew, but directly experiencing the care involved is an eye opener.

Nothing clever to say today. Too busy being poked, prodded, imaged, etc.

I’ve been trying to decide what, if anything, to write about this week’s unexpected health problems. This blog is part travelogue, part essays about politics, culture and sports, and part just musings about my interactions with the world. That last part can be called a diary, and I’ve no illusion about the world needing to know anyone’s innermost thoughts (though I would make an exception for Einstein and Hawking). So I’m trying to vector away from being a diarist.

But this was a BIG experience for me. Most likely life-changing. So it deserves some storytelling.

One big lesson/insight was the availability of health care facilities in our remote CA home – it’s not good. There are no hospitals in our little town of Fallbrook and the urgent cares nearby are awful and close at 9pm. The only places I would want to go for urgent care or ER are 30 to 60 minutes away, respectively. Not good as you age and need more care more frequently.

Another insight is that the Kaiser Permanente healthcare system is fabulous, especially as you get closer to its center – hospital care. Their outer rings – education, preventative care, lifestyle training, are all excellent and designed to minimize the odds of their patients needing care deeper in the system. KP really gets it – spend a little money keeping you healthy and out of the inner, more costly rings of care, is good for them and good for me. Win-win. Their middle ring – the primary care docs and specialists – are still good, but are more bureaucratic and harder to get access to. Scheduling is a pain. This is the part that gave managed care a bad name, and Kaiser is till working to find a better balance for everyone.

The next ring, urgent care and ER, I’ve only had the one interaction – this time in the ER. It was actually quite good, though it was an hour away from me, meaning I had to wait until K got home from camping to get her to take me to the ER. I was too sick to try and drive an hour. The Kaiser ER was spacious, efficient, clean, and after I got there, VERY crowded. I arrived before the rush, so I was checked in and triaged in about 30 minutes, received an initial consult, a CT scan, urine sample acquired and blood drawn for tests in another 30 minutes. After a 45 minute wait the ER docs were ready to give us the news. So about 2 hours after arrival, a very somber MD told us that I had a serious kidney infection and needed to be admitted to the attached hospital. That was a bad surprise. He went on to describe the procedure they recommended and its possible complications in fairly nauseating detail. His delivery was almost funny, as he would pause a while in the middle of a sentence, leaving you wondering what the punchline was going to be. “Mr. Nichols, one option is for us to not perform the surgery and treat the infection with strong antibiotics. We don’t recommend that course, as it has a high risk of poor outcomes, including…<long pause>…kidney failure leading to removal, sepsis, even more severe pain, and…<another pause>…well, a significant chance of death.”

I was amused, and answered “Well, that all sounds like fun. Let’s not choose that option.” K was horrified and had gone pretty white. The discussions around the recommended option – inserting a stent into the urethra and up into the ureter (the pipe that connects the kidney to the bladder), allowing the kidney’s accumulated wastes and infection to drain – were fairly graphic. The possible complications included significant mangling of the unfortunate wrapper around the urethra (the penis), long-term urinal and/or sexual dysfunction, potential for needing a urine bag on the outside for weeks or months, etc. These are all low-probability complications, in the 1-2% range, but they needed to be discussed. I was less amused, being the subject of said complications of the recommended procedure, and K was once again horrified. This consult was much harder on her than on me.

All that said, we made the decision to take KP on on the recommended course of action and I was swiftly admitted into Kaiser’s inner ring of care, their hospitals. Kaiser’s new hospitals are simply amazing. Spacious, efficient, luxurious, and very high tech. My room was large with floor to ceiling windows, a gigantic TV that functioned as entertainment and their way of communicating with and educating me, complete access to my medical record and test results via the TV. A spacious bathroom and shower was attached to the room. And the system of care around me mirrored that high tech/luxury approach. I asked if my room was so nice because this was a med-surge floor, and the nurse told me nope, every single patient room in the hospital was just this nice. I have limited experience in such things, but based on my experience if I’m going to need hospital care, I want it to be in a KP hospital. Good news – a brand new one is opening up in San Marcos this summer, only 30 minutes away. Bad news – Kaiser has no services in Kentucky or Indiana. That’s a problem to be solved another day.

So that’s probably enough for one blog post – the insight about Kaiser’s ring of health services and the extremely high quality of their inner core, their hospitals. My surgery occurred that same night, went very well, no mangling of tender bits, and I was well enough to be released at noon the next day. So far so good, and I can’t say how thankful I am for their expertise.

What a difference a day makes. With a combination of acidic water (vinegar, citrus), some OTC pain meds, and lots of support from my wife, my medical problem seems to have passed. This was a wakeup call – I’m changing some lifestyle habits so I (hopefully) never have to go through that again. It was…horrific. Still going to the MD today for a checkup.

Lots of wakeup calls lately, actually. Life is short. Time to start acting like it.

Meanwhile, out in the world, billionaires acting like children. These dudes are just toxic.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. We need ethics clamps on SCOTUS, ASAP. Alito is a monster who needs to be caged.

Finally, I’d say this is some very bad news for Trump. Pretty much exactly the same crime, and she got four years prison time without parole. Precedent, anyone?

I won’t write much about this, but I had a rough night and morning. Kidney stone(s). Worst pain I’ve ever experienced, and it went on for hours. I don’t think the episode is over, but I’m a little bit functional now.

Visiting the MD tomorrow. Was minutes away from going to the ER last night.

Wouldn’t wish this on anyone. Pretty big design flaw in the human body.

It’s 7am on the Left Coast and I’ve been up quite a while. Not surprising. Yesterday’s travel day went well aboard two 100% packed Southwest flights. I dodged a bullet on the second flight when a Mongo-sized guy (had to be 6 foot 8 and wide) decided to sit somewhere else after he eyed the middle seat next to me. I ended up with a normal-sized seatmate, a nap and a good book.

So back to Board meetings, exercise, chores to take care of, and June gloom. No more T-ball for a while (picture below). And hopefully a restart on creative writing. There’s a contest I’d like to enter that will require me to write a complete novel in 75 days. I’m in.

The big news this morning is that the President’s son Hunter the Disheveled plead guilty to a couple of federal charges, tax evasion and unlicensed guns. This should end the saga of MAGA-land shouting about Biden family corruption, but it probably won’t. For me it says a lot about Biden’s commitment to “…no one is above the law”. His own DOJ is prosecuting his son. And it should reduce the volume of the what-about-ism when discussing Trump’s crimes.

On Trump, it sure seems he’s headed for a reckoning. It’s taken a long time, but I hope the walls finally close in around him. All career politicians have a sleaze factor, but he’s the Sleaze King.

After two and a half weeks in KY this trip, I’m exhausted. I thought this would be a quiet-ish trip in which I could get a lot of writing done. Not so. Massive amounts of time with the kids, dinners out, adding a pool to the backyard, adding shelves to the basement, visits with friends and family, special events around Fathers Day, quite a few business meetings online, laundering sweaty clothes…it all adds up. The only writing I got done was blogging, and while that’s something, it’s not what I had in mind. The backlog of stories that need to be written is piling up.

My flights west today will be a minor relief – I can just sit back, relax in that sardine-can Southwest seating style, and let someone else do the transportation. Seven to eight hours, door to door, with six hours in flights, including connection. Not bad. I’ll be in the west for three weeks, not back here until shortly after my birthday. Maybe I’ve had things backwards – living in the west gives me time for R&R, and living here is a scheduled whirlwind. That makes sense, given the number of friends and family here. Over time I’ll find a balance.

The weather in KY has been amazingly good, not as hot and humid as you would expect for mid-June. That’ll probably change in July. It rained last night, a warm rain of the type we just don’t get on the Pacific coast. Tomato weather.

So many great memories of this trip, it’ll take me a while to ponder it all. In the end that’s all we have – memories and experiences. In the immortal words of Pink Floyd, from the 1973 song Breathe:

Breathe, breathe in the air
Don’t be afraid to care
Leave, but don’t leave me
Look around and choose your own ground

For long, you live and high you fly
And smiles you’ll give and tears you’ll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be

Words to live by.

I had a very, very vivid dream this morning. I dreamed pretty much an entire science fiction story, and woke up speaking the lines of the main character. I mean, the words went straight from my dream to my voice. Like reading a script. Weird; never had that happen before.

The details are slipping away even now, but the main idea and key events remain. I’ll try to hold on to those.

***

I don’t think anyone saw this coming. We’ve changed the tilt of Earth’s axis by almost three feet, just by pumping groundwater out of aquifers. Damn. Changing the axial tilt of a planet…that’s some god-level, straight out of a Marvel comic shit right there.

***

Speaking of water, today my clan goes to Taylorsville Lake for a pontoon boat journey Fathers Day event. The weather looks fine, and a day or even a morning on a lake won’t suck. It’s not clear if the grandsons will go – they’ve been sick – but it’ll be fun nonetheless. Life gets real simple floating around on a slow boat.

Michelle Bachmann is evil. She must think she’s somehow saving the kids’ souls (that’s the most generous interpretation), but she’s not. She’s torturing them with fear. I have 3 and 6 year old grandkids, so I know what I’m talking about. This is straight-up child abuse.

A slow motion version of this happened to me and my brothers, week after week in Baptist church, where we heard how all sinners burn in hell, and we’re all sinners. Scared the shit out of me when I was young. This Bachmann story just disgusts me.

***

This sounds like a lower-stakes version of Jurrasic Park. I hope the barriers work, but as Jeff Goldblum said, “Life finds a way.”

***

Our commercial truck on the street problem may be over. Enough neighbors have complained that the police have put a citation on the trucks and told them to park elsewhere. Law and order prevails.

***

There’s a lot of news about tipping lately. And I have to concur – tipping culture has gotten messy and uncomfortable. I don’t like the turn-around screen at every transaction, asking me to tip with the recipient staring me in the face. It’s passive-aggressive. And tip for what, exactly? In many cases (takeout food) it’s for the service of taking my money. At one sit-down place recently, I ordered at the counter, paid up front including a 25% tip on the turn-around screen (I’m a good tipper, I think, but I’m reconsidering that). Then I sat down and waited forever for my food, then when it arrived it was cold and the order was wrong. The waitress was too busy helping the cook and other customers to be bothered with my order. So I tipped large-ish for bad service and a bad meal.

It used to be a simple equation. Good service, good tip at the end of service. Now, not so much. And we’re all getting guilted by hearing that servers/cashiers make no money and tips are their lifeline. That may be true, but there’s got to be a better, less passive-aggressive way to deal with that.

I can’t stand it. I bought Tesla shares a year ago and it immediately began an epic drop in stock price. Immediately, like the next day. It sank relentlessly, day after day. I said, well OK, I’m a long term investor, so I held on hoping it would come back. After crash landing and languishing around $100/share forever, it finally started to climb and I sold on June 7 for $220/share, feeling pretty good about it.

As soon as I sold, Tesla began an equally epic run upward and today, a week later, it broke $260/share. Fuck.

All anyone would have to do is follow my stock picks and do the opposite. Bet big against me. They’d be wealthy fast.

I love this joke.

An atom walks into a bar. The bartender pours him a drink and says, “You look sad, what’s up?”

The atom says, “I lost an electron.”

The bartender says, “Are you sure?”

The atom says, “I’m positive.”

And this one: Never trust an atom. They make up everything.

I must have gained a few electrons lately. I’ve been kinda negative.

In not-jokey news, CA finally does something smart. Win-win with photovoltaic covers on open canals. It’s just common sense, but there’s very little of that in government these days.

But if you want really big solutions to Earth’s really big problems, go talk to Casey Handmer – he’s got it covered. His terra-scale engineering ideas make complete sense to me. My vote is Handmer for Secretary of Energy. And Interior. And Environment.

Good for Illinois and Gov Pritzger! Fight back against book bans. I loved his quote:

“Book bans are about censorship, marginalizing people, marginalizing ideas and facts,” Pritzker declared at the Harold Washington Library, the crown jewel of Chicago’s public library system. “Regimes ban books, not democracies.”

I’m watching UK’s struggles in building the next team during the offseason, and I’ve come to the conclusion that college basketball as I knew it is now 100% dead. College hoops is nothing more than the NBA’s AAA league. I mean, it always was, but in years past we were allowed the illusion of a college team that played together, won and lost together, identified with the school and its legacy. But no more; it’s all dead.

Surprisingly, the slow death of college basketball began in 2006 when the NBA ruled that high school players could no longer be drafted by the NBA. That 2006 rule, still in force, says that athletes needed to be at least 19 years old and have one year of college under their belt before an NBA team could award them a contract. It’s surprising because at face value, that was a good thing. The NBA was on its way to scouting middle schools for the next LeBron – not a good look. So the NBA did the minimal “responsible thing”. I remember not liking what is now known as the “one and done” rule, but all it meant early on is that a few of the most talented players left for the NBA after playing for “their college” for one year. Think Anthony Davis, John Wall, Malik Monk, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Jamal Murray, Tyler Herro, and dozens more. John Calipari and UK embraced the system and had great success for a decade or so, but we lost more players to the NBA than any other school.

Other schools copied Calipari’s style and recruiting pitch, and a certain kind of parity settled over college ball from the late 90’s through 2019. Then, weirdly coincident with the pandemic, the death of college hoops was made certain in late 2018 with the advent of the transfer portal and NIL. I didn’t see it coming; I’m not sure anyone saw it with much clarity. But those two actions killed the game.

The transfer portal was created in 2018. From our own Courier Journal:

It’s the current method for NCAA athletes to transfer between schools. Adopted in 2018, the portal was designed “to help compliance administrators track transfers to better organize the process,” an NCAA spokesman said via email.

The portal is a “notification-of-transfer” model, which an NCAA spokesman said was adopted to “empower student-athletes.” 

Under the transfer portal system, athletes only have to submit their name into the portal to be transfer eligible, a change from the previous process that required permission from a coach, athletics administrator or other party to transfer.

The final death blow to college hoops came from a surprising source the next year, in 2019 – Gov Gavin Newsome of California (?!). Newsome drove a stake through the heart of the almost dead college game with the Fair Pay to Play Act, now known as NIL (Name, Image, Likeness). From the Atlanta Constitution in 2019:

For many decades, the NCAA strictly enforced rules against college athletes being paid for endorsements, autographs and the like. Such restrictions were lifted last summer, ushering collegiate sports into a new era in which athletes can monetize their fame without risking their eligibility. A look at how the change happened, how it’s evolving and what’s next:

Sept. 30, 2019: California becomes the first state to pass a law allowing college athletes to be paid for use of their names, images and likenesses (NIL). Gov. Gavin Newsom calls the Fair Pay to Play Act, initially set to take effect in 2023 and later accelerated to September 2021, “the beginning of a national movement.” NCAA officials call it “harmful,” “unconstitutional” and an “existential threat” to college sports.

Turns out the NCAA was right. The NCAA whined and complained, but the deed was done. By 2021 most states had followed CA’s ill-conceived lead and adopted some version of NIL, allowing college athletes to be paid while remaining a “student-athlete”.

All these changes seemed reasonable and mostly good at the time. Can’t recruit high schoolers to the NBA, that sounds good. Check. Giving student-athletes more choice in where they can play and study, that sounds good. Check. And rewarding great athletes to stay in college with a financial package, that seems more fair. Check (actually, checkmate). But the combination of those things – the high school rule, the transfer portal, and NIL, has killed the last vestiges of the old college system. NIL in particular exposes the naked capitalism of the system – giving college coaches the latitude to collude with sponsors (companies and individual donors) and create pay packages for athletes completely kills the notion of team. There’s now no team, no loyalty to school, no legacy respected – there’s only the athlete’s desire to extract the most cash from the system right now. The NCAA basketball system is now indistinguishable from the NBA. Coaches build a team based on how much money they can pay the best athletes enrolled in college. And the athletes are free to chase those paychecks via the transfer portal.

We’ll never see another four-year team; we’ll never see another group of young men develop together over four years. The old system is gone, and I miss the hell out of it.

My rate of reading goes way down when I’m in KY, mostly because I spend so much time doing things with the kids and grandkids. That’s generally a good thing, but taking downtime to read is good for me – when I stop reading, my anxiety level goes way up. Anxiety level up, mood and decision making processes go down, and I can quickly get into a Bad Place.

So this morning I’m taking the time to finish a very good book, Walkaway by Cory Doctorow. Walkaway is the ultimate us versus them, rich versus poor story, set in a near-future America where the technology exists to have a completely post-scarcity world, but the rich (zottas, in Doctorow’s story) won’t let that happen. What’s the use in being rich unless you can lord it over people with less? Doctorow creates a convincing world where walkaways and zottas fight it out across cyberspace, decimated lands, with advanced weaponry and friends/families split across lines like the original Civil War. It’s a big book with big ideas, and I’ll be sorry when it’s over. I’m almost there.

Haven’t written much of anything the last few days. It’s been a busy time:

• Fishing and golf with the grandsons one day
• Some for-pay proposal writing
• A stint babysitting the grandsons that included a Superfund-qualified diaper change
• Building a backyard pool and hosting the kids there for the first time
• A few trips to the hardware store (pool stuff) and a nice trip to the St. Matthews Farmer Market
• A Jackson Browne concert at The Palace

I think today I’ll just chill and catch my breath. Maybe get some pictures queued up for posting.

Memes aside, the day is starting out pretty nicely.

• Trump is indicted on seven (!) federal charges.
• Ken Paxton’s sugar daddy and co-conspirator is arrested and jailed.
• SCOTUS strikes a rare blow for justice, and pissed off “Justice” Thomas.
• Cracker Barrel has fallen.
• Pat Robertson was called home by Satan.

Maybe the moral arc of the universe really does bend toward justice.

Meme of the day.

Holy shit. This has some teeth. Too early to celebrate, but an indictment is a first step.

If I can believe the news today, Trump’s indictment for some serious crimes is imminent. Same for Ken Paxton, the piece of shit TX attorney general criminal. I’ll believe it when I see it, but hope springs eternal.

Big day today. Taking the elder grandson fishing, and I’m armed with everything I should need to pull his first fish out of water – new rods/reels, new tackle, bread for bluegill, smelly bait for catfish. No worms unfortunately; I really don’t know where the closest bait shops might be – probably up on the Ohio somewhere. Wish us luck. Then this evening we’re taking both the boys to Top Golf. In between that I’m making a few bucks by writing a proposal for my tech company. A fulfilling summer day.

BTW, congrats to the folks who do the KY Fish and Wildlife website. It took me about 90 seconds to buy the proper fishing license. It’s a nice, informative and efficient website. Quite rare, actually.

It’s been unusually dry in KY, so the rain today is a nice change. Our tomatoes say thank you. Not a good day if you have to drive anywhere, though.

***

My stock picking talent continues. I sold my Tesla shares a few days ago at $220 and was pretty happy about it. That was the highest price Tesla has seen in a year. Today Tesla blew through $230, on its way to who knows where. Thank goodness 99% of our equities are managed by professionals in diversified funds. I wasn’t meant to be a day trader.

***

In the clear light of day today, my take on the news of alien tech in our possession feels pretty naive. Even the BoingBoing commenters are skeptical. I *do* want it to be true, but let’s see some evidence to back up the claims of the military whistleblowers. Anything.

***

Everything Trump touches dies. He has a stake in LIV Golf and the PGA, and now professional golf as we used to know it is dead. Then CNN’s CEO hosted Trump in an ill-conceived town hall, and now that CEO has been forced to resign. I’m just waiting for Trump’s Putin/Russia connections to pay off as he inevitably destroys Putin.

300,000 words published on the blog so far. That’s three decent-sized novels. Turns out I’m a better essayist than a novelist. But that kinda makes sense. I was an excellent sprinter and a shitty long distance runner. That’s my MO. I make my mark a few hundred words at a time.

I’m trying to capture a good shot of the fireflies in the backyard. I’m very happy to have changed lawn services – I told this guy that I wanted no chemicals, no spray for mosquitos. You kill the mosquitos and you also kill the fireflies. He did what I asked and the result is beautiful. We don’t have fireflies in Socal, so these are extra special.

I don’t know why, but that reminds me of a song I heard today. Sheep Go To Heaven, by Cake. The refrain is “…sheep go to heaven, and goats go to hell”. I won’t hate on goats, but that’s a pretty funny line. Goats are definitely more devious than sheep. It’s a really dark song masquerading as a fun little ditty:

I’m not feeling alright today
I’m not feeling that great
I’m not catching on fire today
Love has started to fade
I’m not going to smile today
I’m not gonna laugh
You’re out living it up today
I’ve got dues to pay

And the gravedigger puts on the forceps
The stonemason does all the work
The barber can give you a haircut
The carpenter can take you out to lunch

Now I just want to play on my panpipes
I just want to drink me some wine
As soon as you’re born you start dyin’ 
So you might as well have a good time, oh no

Sheep go to heaven
Goats go to hell
Sheep go to heaven
Goats go to hell

“As soon as you’re born you start dyin’, so you might as well have a good time”. Damn. That’s some nihilistic shit right there.

Finally, I don’t understand why this isn’t the headline everywhere. From some fairly reliable sources, not nut cases, we’re not alone in the universe (!!). Area 51 is real after all. I can’t be objective about this; I so want it to be true. But the evidence is piling up, and these testimonials are not from your usual conspiracy theorists.

The book banning evil comes to my own backyard. Temecula is just a few miles away from Fallbrook. Banning a book because it mentions someone whose lifestyle you don’t like is really, really dangerous. We shouldn’t rewrite history – it was what it was, and our students need to know the truth about the past and learn from it.

***

I’ve made my decision on at least one of the travel cameras for the Africa trip this summer. The Canon Powershot SX740. 20 megapixels, 65X optical zoom, and 0.6 pounds. Perfect blend of size and power to zoom in on wildlife. I’ve owned much earlier versions of the Powershot, and they were always great little cameras.

***

NIL money has changed college sports into semipro teams. It’s a fundamental change, and not a good one. I think it’s damaging the game. This excerpt from A Sea of Blue is a great example:

If we can get past the tampering stuff, the news here implies that things between John Calipari and Antonio Reeves aren’t exactly friendly right now. I talked to David Sisk from Cats Illustrated yesterday and he told me that Reeves was very unhappy with his NIL deals and was making five figures while he saw his teammates make six figures or, in the case of Oscar Tshiebwe, more than that.

Whatever your opinions are about NIL do not matter here so I’m not going to debate whether or not this is good for college basketball because we are beyond that point. John Calipari has a fundamental and possibly a program changing decision to make: is he going to give Reeves what he thinks he is worth or is he going to let another team do it? 

Calipari has plenty of NIL money to work with but he has consistently stated that he is not going to throw out numbers at guys. Instead, he presents the NIL deals as an opportunity and not a concrete figure. Basically, he’s not going to tell them how much they’ll make at Kentucky but they’ll have chances to make plenty. This philosophy seemingly goes against what other teams are doing in regards to NIL.

If he declines to play ball on this matter with Reeves then Calipari is sending a clear signal that he is going to do it his way. His way may have already lost Hunter Dickinson and maybe Keshad Johnson as well. These transfer guys mostly know they’re not going to the NBA so they have to make as much money in college as they can in a short amount of time. That seems to be Reeves’ playbook.

With the portal already thin, Calipari has a lot of work to do to get guys on this team ASAP. It’s the eleventh hour. Is he going to adjust and evolve like he always has in his career? Or is he going to continue to go into these recruitments with one hand tied behind his back?

Reeves and Calipari are set to meet this weekend.

NIL doesn’t work the way I thought it would. The introduction of payments to a team changes everything. The college game I remember is gone for good.

If this is true, it’s very disturbing. We should think long and hard about autonomous weapons. Just one word sums it up – Skynet.

Also disturbing – this review of Noah’s Mill. One of my favorite bourbon’s, the Malt reviewer hates it. Though several of his commenters push back hard on the reviewer’s take. To each his/her own, I guess.

One last disturbing bit in local news – Churchill Downs is suspending operations to investigate why more than a dozen horses have died there recently. This many equine deaths are really hard to explain. I hope they find a root cause and correct it.

My life for the foreseeable future. Could be worse. As long as Southwest holds their shit together.

One, two, a one, two, three, four

On the road again
Just can’t wait to get on the road again
The life I love is making music with my friends

And I can’t wait to get on the road again
On the road again
Goin’ places that I’ve never been
Seein’ things that I may never see again
And I can’t wait to get on the road again

On the road again
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We’re the best of friends
Insisting that the world keep turning our way
And our way
Is on the road again
I just can’t wait to get on the road again
The life I love is makin’ music with my friends
And I can’t wait to get on the road again

On the road again
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We’re the best of friends
Insisting that the world keep turning our way
And our way
Is on the road again
Just can’t wait to get on the road again
The life I love is makin’ music with my friends
And I can’t wait to get on the road again
And I can’t wait to get on the road again

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Willie Nelson

On the Road Again lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Substitute “makin’ music” with “hanging out” and it works.

No shit, Sherlock.

Trump’s legal troubles continue, mostly because he can’t keep his mouth shut. Classic. Though Jeff Teidrich said it much better than me.

I’ll have what she’s having. “A study has revealed a genetic mutation that allows a woman to live virtually without pain, without fear, without anxiety, and with rapid-healing ability.” Wow!

Big-time irony here: CDC conference cursed by Covid outbreak, 181 infected. The virus doesn’t give a damn who you are, it just does its thing.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists just published some wild shit on brain hacking. Yikes!

It’s official – Oscar Tshiebwe won’t be back next season at UK. The best rebounder I’ve ever seen is going to the NBA. With this and other player news, I’m officially worried about the team. Not looking good.