What a difference a couple of days make. Feeling almost normal, my resident rhinovirus is on the retreat. One of the best feelings I know is the first day you recover from an illness – the world seems noticeably brighter.
However, the headlines are still tough to read. January 2025 has been a shitshow, in the real world and the political world. Many headlines start with “someone is shocked by something Trump did”. When are people going to learn that he now believes he has king-level dictatorial powers and is anxious to exercise them. There is no line, no boundary, as far as he is concerned. Stop being shocked and do something about it. Congress needs to wake up and wrestle control back from Donnie and his minions.
UK plays Arkansas at home tomorrow – Cal will be back in the house. There’s a lot of chatter about whether UK fans should boo him or not. I think not. The man was superb off the court, doing great things for the community and his players. And he was a good coach for 10 of his 15 years. And he left UK making sure we weren’t stuck with his $35M payout. So I say let bygones be bygones. But we still need to beat the Hogs.
Recovering from a rough, rough evening after coast to coast travel with a cold. I was fine when I could rest during the day, but a full travel day pushed me over the edge. Better this morning, but last night was ugly.
Watching the Donnie Convict press conference discussing the awful air disaster, and…OMG. He did fine for about five minutes, say the things a President should say about tragedy and mourning. Then, he did a sharp turn to placing blame, because “…I’ve seen lots of things like this, and I have opinions.” He blames the crash on DEI and the Biden hiring policies. He called Pete Buttigieg, previous Transportation Secretary, a bullshit artist. He and the others he paraded across the stage all blamed DEI based on “common sense”. Their big theme is meritocracy – if we just hired the best and brightest for every job, a tragedy like this wouldn’t happen.
The guy just can’t help himself. He tries to be human, then lapses into his dark victimhood / saviour fantasies. If we all just do what he tells us to do, nothing bad will happen. Only he can save us.
Part of this is just getting ahead of the story, wherein he fired the TSA and FAA leadership a week ago. Bad timing. So he has to blame the old administration, not the agencies he’s cast into chaos with his actions.
There are so many things wrong with this. He’s turning a tragedy into a campaign rally, a podium to blame others for something terrible that has happened on his watch. He has zero evidence that hiring practices have anything to do with the crash. But it’s a way to deflect attention away from his recent and ongoing ill-considered actions.
So I guess the NTSB should save some money, stop their investigation, and just listen to Donnie – the root cause of the crash is/was DEI. Case closed.
At least Donnie is consistent. Normal days or tragic days, he’s an infantile asshole.
Off to the Left Coast today in hope of healing up and warming up. I could definitely use a few warm sunny days.
Given all the chaos/destruction being inflicted on our previously-mostly-working, previously-mostly-lawful government, this seems like the least we can do. Sign a petition to keep the nutjob Kennedy out of power. Takes 60 seconds. Giving him control over US health services would be tragic.
Just-annointed head of DHS Kristi Dogkiller Noem has a new catchy nickname – ICE Barbie. She looks and acts like someone headed for a mental breakdown.
Convict Donnie is breaking the law pretty much every day at the moment, and that’s not hyperbole. He believes he is King, and he’s testing the limits to see how far the feckless and wounded system of laws will let him go. Laws he is breaking (and should be prosecuted for) at the moment include:
Firing federal employees for no cause other than partisan politics
Refusing to release and spend funds authorized by Congress
Keeping TikTok running, after Congress and SCOTUS unanimously said shut it down
And that’s just off the top of my head. There are many more. I hope that Congress and even SCOTUS get some cahones and defend their role in the Constitutional checks and balance system. The President was never meant to be a King, but SCOTUS opened the door and Donnie waddled through it.
UK had another magic win last night, beating announcer’s favorite (yeah, I’m talkin’ to you, Jimmy Dykes) Tennessee on TN’s home court. We planted our flag on Rocky Top. We were missing three (!) key players, two starters, and still carved out the gutsy win. It was the kind of win not seen in years at UK, and we can add that to great wins this season over FL, the Zags, Dook, TX A&M. Now if we could just learn how to beat folks who aren’t rated higher than us.
Rough night last night. The incessant cold and exposures to whatever is going around has finally taken its toll – some virus is hammering at my health, and at the moment it’s winning. Working to pull myself together enough to be able to travel tomorrow.
That, and insomniac reading showed that Convict Donnie’s Project 2025-driven staff is moving ahead at warp speed. They’re tearing down the government, as promised, and quickly. Half of what they’re doing is illegal, but each illegal action just gets thrown on the to-be-litigated dumpster fire with all the others, waiting for someone to challenge the action. It’s a grim moment – who knows what’s going to be left after these anarchists tear away all protections, all checks and balances, all norms.
An analogy. Let’s say you live in a large multigenerational home, built over decades. It’s stable but unwieldy and inefficient. And it’s the only home available to you. To improve things you should tackle it a section at a time and remodel it. If you just blow it up and start over, where will you live? You’ll be shivering in the cold, waiting for a promised new/better home. Trump’s minions are doing the latter – they’re just blowing shit up with no concern for what comes next. And they’re supposedly the ones who “love America”.
It’s finally raining in Socal. About time, after 8-9 months of nothing. We’ve gotten about a half an inch so far. Our “normal” rainfall by now is about nine inches, so we’re still waaaaay behind, but this should cap off the recent fire danger.
And I’ve had time to think about resurrecting our long-in-limbo automated fire suppression system. I think I know how to make it work with minimal extra cost, though it will be a manual system, not automated. Better than nothing. I can have it ready for the next round of Socal fires.
On the political front, it’s comforting to know that after we’ve bullied/threatened Mexico, Canada, Panama, Denmark, Columbia and Greenland, Donnie Convict says “America is respected again”. He is a mob boss through and through – all he knows is intimidation, threats, and bluster. So glad he’s our voice to the world again.
I got a little bored and made the mistake of reading the news. Pete Hegseth and Kristi Noem (!!) are now Cabinet Secretaries, with all the responsibility, power, and perks those jobs bring. Hegseth will “lead” the most powerful single organization on Earth, the US military. His credentials…he hates woke.
As head of DHS, Noem the dog killer gets to make the calls on immigration (ICE, customs, and border patrol), airlines (TSA), disaster recovery (FEMA), cybersecurity (!!!) (CERT and CISA), the Coast Guard, the Secret Service, terrorism (that’s actually appropriate; she’s got the right temperament for a terrorist), and a gaggle of lesser agencies and missions.
So Hegseth can bully the world and Noem can pretty much ruin our national security. Just as an example, the thought of this person in charge of cybersecurity is sickening. Terrifying.
Convict Donnie’s first week on the job has been consequential. He’s managed to give jobs to some of the worst people on Earth. Best case, they just take the money and run, like Donnie intends to. Worst case, they actually try to do their jobs.
Tough night again for the Cats; lost to Vandy in Nashville. A game we could’ve won, should’ve won. But we fell short in the final couple of minutes, couldn’t hold on to the ball. We come out strong each half, then we struggle in the late minutes. Hard to figure.
Went over and roughhoused with the grandsons for a couple of hours, and the game disappointment faded. Good therapy. Those guys live in their own little universe, and it’s fun to join them for a while. Then they wear you out.
I’m watching the delayed recording of the golf tourney at Torrey Pines. Gorgeous views, tough golf course. Normally I’d be there. All things considered, pretty sure I’ll spend next January in Socal. The weather the last two weeks has been brutal. A 60-70 degree temperature difference, and The Farmers Open in Socal. Not a hard decision. Well…until I consider the grandson factor.
Changing subjects. I looked at a unique house in southern Indiana yesterday. Never seen anything quite like it, the entire house was a work of art. It wasn’t practical, but man, was it beautiful. And I was impressed by the topography and woodlands in southern IN. Worth a look down the road.
Went to two new (new for me) downtown eateries yesterday – Taste, billing itself as the original Louisville wine/bourbon tasting room, and the restaurant next door, Meesh Meesh. Both were great. I liked Taste’s vibe and selections – it’s a great spot to just kill some time and explore rare versions of your favorite libation. Meesh Meesh has a big reputation as a culinary powerhouse, and it didn’t disappoint. I’ve always considered Mediterranean cuisine as just OK, good enough but not that interesting. Meesh Meesh proved me wrong – everything we ate was superb. Star of the meal – a crispy cauliflower appetizer. Well done, downtown. Meesh Meesh interior is the title pic.
Still making good progress on the novel rewrite, and I’ve thrown in what I hope will be an interesting concept. Imagine you lose a loved one. Now imagine you can have an authentic conversation with that deceased loved one, courtesy of AI. Throw everything ever recorded from that person into a modern large language model – audio, video, writing, texts, social media posts – and the LLM should be able to simulate that person’s responses to questions and conversations. In the novel I use this concept when the protagonist is required to attend therapy sessions to manage her grief and anger (can’t have mentally unstable people in a high-risk environment like a Lunar colony), and she is offered a “therapy sim”. I need a name for it, and here are some ideas (some just for fun):
Memory Box
Gone and Not Forgotten
Afterlife
Welcome Back
Digital Twin
You’re Not Alone
Calling Heaven
I’ll Never Leave You
As a writer, it’s a really useful concept to bring out backstory and flashbacks while staying in present-tense conversations – though the conversation is with a machine.
The more I think about it, I suspect this will really happen. Someone will turn this concept into a product or service. Some will consider it an abomination, a desecration of the loved one’s memory. I admit, some aspects of the idea are a little creepy. Some will love it, maybe to the point of it being an unhealthy obsession. I for one would love to have a high-fidelity model of my mom’s personality to talk with – there’s a lot I never got to cover with her. But…there’s not enough data from her life to create a decent model.
As I read The Parable of the Talents, and consider the evil idiocy of the new administration, I am upset. Pissed off. Life has completely imitated art, unfortunately. Chapter 11 of the book is horrific, and it starts with this prescient, timely poem:
Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen
To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery
I can’t think of a better summary of the US in 2025. Octavia Butler…oracle, seer and truthteller.
A Bardstown lawmaker proposes a new KY law to keep anyone vaccinated for COVID from donating blood. That would rule out about 95% of the US population. I wonder if her tune will change when she’s in a car wreck and bleeding out.
The new administration has directed the National Institutes of Health to do nothing, publish nothing, speak to no one and don’t travel anywhere. Seriously. It’s not like there’s an incipient pandemic brewing or anything (H5N1 bird flu).
The fires near our Socal home have been quashed. Not extinguished, but under control and managed. Emergency over, but the risk remains. And the emotional trauma. Below is an AP photo from last night near our place.
Leaving the fires, I *should* just go dark and ignore the news about our new king in DC, but that’s not working for me. It’s better for me to just read about it all, internalize it, categorize it and move on. Here’s what I see so far.
President Felon is roiling the crypto markets. On one hand, BTC holders are bullish – they think the Felon’s reign will be good for them. They might be right. On the other hand, the advent of $Trump and $Melania shitcoins have added huge instability to an already unstable gambling pool called crypto. On paper they’ve each pocketed billions. Time will tell…
Mt Denali is now again Mt McKinley.
The Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America.
The southern border has been declared a national emergency and war zone, Mexican cartels have been designated as terrorist organizations, and US military has been deployed as a result.
Pres Felon is busy rewriting history, taking down pictures that offend him in the Pentagon and elsewhere. And giving speeches full of lies, though that’s just business as usual for him.
1500-ish convicted criminals (the J6 rioters) have been pardoned and are being released.
The Pres has decided to attack the Constitution with Executive Order attempting to remove the 14th Amendment.
The US has removed itself from the World Health Organization.
The female head of the US Coast Guard has been fired, because DEI I suppose.
Elon Musk did a full Nazi salute at the inauguration. It’s so sad that he’s either gone unhinged or maybe just always was a fascist.
All federal agencies and programs have been directed to recognize only M and F genders, and disallow anyone to fill out a form saying they are anything else.
The Dept of Health and Human Services website outlining women’s reproductive rights has been taken down. I suppose women now won’t need those pesky rights to make decisions about their bodies.
Tik-Tok has been saved by Executive Order, making the Supreme Court’s ruling null and void.
Jose Andres (a literal saint!) and Gen Mark Milley have been removed from participation in federally-sponsored programs and committees.
A huge bundle of Biden’s previous Executive Orders have been revoked, by new Executive Order. 78 Biden EOs revoked, by my count. DEI was the main focus of these 78 revoked EOs, but Covid controls, census improvements, environmental regulations, and voting improvements also got chopped.
As I’m researching and writing this, I find that the NY Times has a better, more complete list and explanations. I don’t need to reinvent the wheel, so look here.
President Felon and his gang came to office today ready for action, unlike last time. This doesn’t bode well for the future.
I don’t even know where to start. Trump hit the ground running with ~100 Executive Orders ranging from renaming Denali to amending the Constitution (14th Amendment, birthright citizenship). Then he pardoned all the J6 criminals. In my opinion, that’s the worst action any President has ever taken. So much for law and order. And it’s only Day 1.
Then last night fires broke out all around our Socal house. Two significant fires, each 2-3 miles away from the house. The more dangerous of the two (dangerous to us, based on location and wind direction) is under control for now, but the one south of us is still burning and moving fast. I woke up at 4am eastern time, don’t know why, but that’s when the fires started and I got notified via the Watch Duty app. I’ve been online and on the phone for hours. All is OK for now, but…we really need some rain in Socal.
Looking at the maps, there were four fires that began in a few hours, all in a straight line up the I-15 from Poway to Temecula. There’s nothing official on this yet, but it sure looks to me like these fires were set intentionally by someone driving north on 15.
Trying to write today but there are lots of distractions. Golf at 5Iron with the grandsons. Lunch at the Gralehouse with my brothers. A phone call with K. A trip to the bookstore.
Thoughts of the Inauguration, the tragic Inauguration. More like a coronation. Those thoughts are tempered by the one of the books I decided to buy and read – Parable of the Talents, by Octavia Butler, deceased genius sci-fi writer. I read Parable when it came out long ago, 1998, and decided today would be a good day to re-read it. It is weirdly, weirdly prescient.
Parable takes place in 2032, in a world where climate disasters have transformed the world. Los Angeles has burned in a great fire. Wars and a pandemic have reduced most people to poverty. The US has elected a religious dictator as President, and his campaign slogan is “Make America Great Again”. Any non-white persons are persecuted by the government and his thugs. (No kidding, the parallels are seriously weird. It’s as if she saw the future.)
Butler is a superb writer. My excuse for reading her book instead of working on my own novel is that it inspires me. So I’m switching back and forth. Read a little, write a little. Stay away from the news. That’s the way I want to spend the whole week. Minimize distractions, maximize word count.
Donnie Convict gets sworn into office (again) tomorrow, as if him swearing an oath has any meaning. It’s going to be a bumpy start.
The inauguration has moved indoors, leaving tens of thousands of MAGA faithful out of the party, literally out in the cold. They’re not happy about that.
The price of eggs is about to skyrocket. Bird flu is forcing egg producers to destroy their hens by the millions. Best case, egg prices triple and MAGA loses their minds. Worst case, H5N1 mutates into something humans can catch and pass along, ushering in another pandemic.
Two days into Donnie’s reign, the US will hit the debt ceiling limit. Donnie will either have to shut down the government’s operations or convince Congress to raise the ceiling. The fiscal hard cores of MAGA will resist.
Tik-Tok is shutting down in the US, making a lot of younger folks very unhappy. Donnie may be able to reverse that, given that he’s willing to sacrifice national security for his ego and profits.
Mass deportation is scheduled to begin in Chicago either Monday or Tuesday. Tom Homan and team are all lathered up to put some kids in cages again. Maybe they’ll just cage them and leave them in the cold, outdoors. It’s going to be five below zero in Chicago tomorrow night, which should make the deporter-in-chief quite happy. Good cruelty quotient there.
Even with all those bumps, Donnie may be happy. Overnight he’s made a paper profit of $25B (billion!) on a new grift – a Trump-branded cryptocurrency debut. He’s found a new way to monetize his popularity with the MAGA idiots. Donnie may be able to cash out his 80% stake in the crypto vaporware quickly, in which case it will crash around the idiots who “invested” in it.
Corruption. Cruelty. Incompetence. Hypocrisy. It’s gonna be a long four years.
Tough night for the Cats. Lost by five points when the refs gave AL 13-14 extra free throws. Just not right. We could’ve should’ve won that game. SEC refs…just the worst.
After the game, a visit to our old friend in Mt Sterling, then a drive home to pick up the grandsons from an art camp. A couple of hours at the Galt house with them and the sting of a KY defeat is forgotten. Love those little guys. Family trumps (hate that word now) sports.
Then, I watched Dune 2 again. Holy shit, what a great movie. Great. Fucking. Movie. That may be the best video rendition of a classic SciFi book ever. Right up there with The Expanse. Everything about Dune 2 was epic.
If the Cats had won, perfect day. In reality, maybe 8/10.
Best: Starship launch today, flight seven. Can’t wait, camped out watching the National Science Foundation’s pre-flight broadcast on TV and SpaceX’s coverage on the laptop. It’s a geek-fest. Man, I am *so* retired.
Wow, big win for the Cats last night. And against 7 players, no less. The refereeing was the worst I’ve ever seen. Bad call after bad call, the majority of them against us. I thought NIL would ruin college basketball, but it turns out that feckless SEC referees will. That said, we won a tough, bar-brawl game. My daughter and I were there in person on a cold, cold Lexington night. Good stuff.
Now to the bad stuff. This is really depressing. Digby and company have been knocking it out of the park since the election – great writing and reporting. They’ve doubled down on fighting fascism, as opposed to 2-3 other favorite writers who have packed it in, given up. But I thing Digby is right – the storm is coming. The recent sharp turn toward toxic masculinity by Zuck and Facebook will further embolden the folks who want to take us back to the 1850s. Two economic classes, the super rich and the workers. One elite gender class, white men. I’m 1000% confused about why more than enough women and minorities are on board with this, but they seem to be. Depressing.
Here’s the situation. Congress was inept and corrupt before they became majority-R, so now they’re inept, corrupt, racist, and pro-fascist. SCOTUS is corrupt and in service of Convict Donnie. Donnie’s Cabinet nominees and closest lieutenants are a who’s who of unqualified loyal toadies, eager to climb over any number of voter bodies to impress their Orange Lord. And Donnie himself, crazy as a loon, will preside over it all in five days. I understand part of how we got here – first Citizen’s United, opening the door for infinite money to corrupt the political sphere – then the Presidential immunity decision, opening the door for Donnie to run and win again. But I don’t understand how/why the electorate is OK with all of this.
So yeah, depressing. I think I’ll do something fun like clean out my basement.
Here in Alaska Kentucky, it’s coooold. 20 degrees F right now and falling toward zero. There was about two feet of accumulated snow and ice on my front porch – I had to break through the icy crust just to walk up the stairs to the front door. And our street is covered with 6+ inches of hard ice. Yikes. I’ve seen some winters here, but this one is rather extreme. And it looks like there’s no end in sight during my stay – for the next three weeks, it’ll barely get above freezing, and some nights it’ll be near zero F. Just yesterday I was sitting on our Socal deck warming myself in the 75 degree sun, reading a book. One may question my intelligence.
The flights here were fine, on time and uneventful. Just what you hope for. Though there was a guy sitting next to me who decided that the arm rest was his, plus about 2-3 inches of space beyond the arm rest, up against me. I took issue with the latter part and told him so. We didn’t talk much after that.
I shouldn’t but I’ll make a few political comments. First, Convict Donnie’s statements about the LA fires are just horrific. Unconscionable. Basically evil. He is the anti-leader. And now the Rethuglicans are putting conditions on federal aid to CA fire victims. There weren’t any conditions on aid to NC or FL after the hurricanes. There weren’t any conditions on aid for NOLA after Katrina. These guys just keep showing us, there is no bottom in the barrel. Assholes.
And what do the conservative leaders care about? Culture war idiocy.
Pete Hegseth, maybe our new SecDef, want to rename lots of DoD facilities in honor of Confederate leaders. Sure, let’s spend some time and money on that important issue.
Greg Abbott, the shitstain of a TX governor, decreed that the TX flags will be flown at full mast for Convict Donnie’s inauguration, going against the tradition of flags flying at half mast for a while after a President dies. Sorry Carter, F you. Texas cares more about scoring infantile political points than about honoring a great person.
Elon Musk, the former entrepreneur now gone political weirdo-toady, is in LA with eight Cybertrucks offering laughingly-small aid after spreading unhelpful and stupid lies about the water problems. I can’t believe how he’s gone so far into the MAGA cult. And BTW, a better person with about one tenth (maybe one hundredth) his money just donated $10M to the LA fire victims – Taylor Swift. Good for her. Musk has become a sad joke.
And on and on. It’s hard to avoid becoming terminally pessimistic.
Tomorrow my daughter and I go to Lexington to see a Cats game and celebrate her birthday. Life goes on, in spite of all the BS out there.
Postscript: These pictures from NPR put a lot of context on any/all gripes I might have. LA at the moment is the heart of darkness. It’s Gaza in CA.
Layover in Denver today, on way to Louisville. I got a crummy salad and a glass of wine for a late lunch. Forty Two Dollars! Is it too late to go into business selling food at the airport?
I wouldn’t be so irritated except (1) the chopped salad was barely there – I ate it in about 30 seconds. I’ve had larger salads as the side in a good restaurant. And (2), the dude sitting next to me ordered the turkey sandwich and fries, which turned out to be a man-sized portion of each. The fries looked especially tasty. We both laughed at the contrast, and he felt bad for me and offered me half his sandwich. I declined, though I was tempted.
Live and learn.
Footnote: At the gate, I am struck by one of air travel’s seeming constants. There are more wheelchairs lined up for (pre)boarding to Louisville than I see at any other destination gate. Six at the moment; could be more coming. This would be an interesting study – to see how well the number of preboard wheelchairs for each destination correlates with the actual health stats for that state/city. My bet is a strong correlation.
Today I begin the weird-feeling process of unpacking some of our bug-out bags and repacking a little of it for the journey to cold Kentucky. Looking at the weather forecast there makes me wonder how wise this trip actually is – it’s gonna be cold. But family ties trump weather, so off I go. Plus, I get to attend a couple of Cats games in person through the remainder of January.
I anticipate trying to explain living through the fires to some of my KY friends and relatives. Our stress (terror!) level this time was low – all we had to do was get prepared for the worst and then wait. But all this brings back my memories of October 2007, The Witch Fire, in which me and our dog Bogey fled the fire and were nomads for about five days. Looking back, I know that experience really affected me psychologically – probably some mild PTSD. I started the day at a hotel on the coast, the Torrey Pines Lodge, where I was scheduled to play in a golf event that morning. I awoke at 4am to a smell of smoke and got up to investigate. I found that fires had broken out in the east county and were being driven by 75-80mph winds toward the coast. I got in my SUV at 530am and drove as fast as possible back to Fallbrook.
The drive there was surreal. Massive smoke plumes from 2-3 sources eastward, at least one directly in line with my destination. I arrived before police began blocking access to neighborhoods. That would become an issue a short time later.
Bogey was glad to see me and I began packing valuables, expecting to bug out later. My wife Kathryn was on a cruise ship with her sister somewhere in the Mediterranean, no way to contact her. I met with a couple of neighbors and we discussed staying or going. Ultimately, when a large trailer park just a mile or so away from us went up in a huge fire, we decided to go. Driving out of Fallbrook with a few possessions, through roads crammed with cars moving at 5mph, with fire all around and smoke/sparks everywhere, was an experience I’ll never forget. We made it to a friend’s house for the first night, then another friend’s place for a couple of nights, then to my brother’s place for a night or two. I went in to work each day, as I was the manager for a crew of utility folks who were involved in power restoration during the fires – fairly critical work.
Every day I drove to Fallbrook to try and get to our place, to see if it survived. Those days I was driving through active fires on both sides of I-15. Quite apocalyptic. For four days the police turned me back, citing safety and concerns with looters. It was maddening. On the fifth day I made it, and found fire trucks parked on our road and in our driveway. Our house and the rock walls surrounding it were the place fire crews made their stand and stopped the brushfires in our neighborhood (actual picture below). That hit me hard.
One of the largest outcomes of that experience was my insistence that we make the property a bit more fire resistant, ASAP. So in 2008 we cut down 300-ish large eucalyptus trees on our hillsides and planted 250 then-tiny Italian olive trees in their place. My reasoning was olive trees are (a) much smaller and less flammable, (b) they don’t need much water, and (c) we could make olive oil. Most of that has proven true, though 16 years later the trees have grown pretty large. Still not as bad as eucs, but now the olives are contributing to fire risk, not mitigating it. I suppose 2025 will be the year that I thin out the olives – trim the excess foliage from each tree, and take out a few of them. That’s always going to be the case for good grove management, fire risk aside. So it’s time.
But back to the present. In LA, 100s of thousands of people are experiencing what I did 16 years ago. And thousands of them will have a much worse ending to their story – they will have lost their home and possessions. I have so much sympathy for them. It’s hard to really understand unless you’ve been through it.
Unlike a lot of LA, we’re still here, unscathed by the damnable Socal weather. In another 12 hours or so all the Red Flag warnings and power shutoff threats will be lifted here in San Diego County. Different and much worse story in LA.
So much to think about with this. Is the vaunted Socal “weather tax” now a joke? Will anyone be able to insure a home in Socal? Will the next generation(s) who occupy this space simply rebuild or will they do something different, something smarter?
There *are* solutions to this. First, let’s solve the Socal water problem. Instead of piping water from eastern states across a single canal and pipeline, let’s do desal in a big way.
Build gigantic solar farms in the desert. I mean big, 2-3 gigawatts per farm.
Run new transmission lines to the CA coast, where we build a dozen or more desalinization plants. Desal plants use tremendous amounts of electricity to pump salty water through filters.
Get serious about it, and Socal could be water-rich in only five years. That changes *everything*. Plenty of water for agriculture, people, landscaping, etc. And plenty of electricity for industry.
Next, let’s change the way we build houses. No more wood homes in Socal. Period. Only brick, steel, and stone. Tile or metal roofs. Even better, LOTS of packed earth homes. Adobe, a type of packed earth structure, is essentially fireproof. Native Americans knew this. And every single home and structure must be equipped with an external sprayer system, a fire suppression system, using all the water we just freed up from the ocean.
This won’t be as fast as solving the water problem. This will take a generation, maybe two. We’ll have to condemn and raze the old-style structures at some point. That’ll be painful, but what do you call the present situation?
I could go on. There are changes needed in the entire infrastructure of our Socal cities – power, water, communications, sewage, garbage. But it’s all doable if we just think long-term instead of simply repeating the past. The climate and weather are changing, and we have to change in response or vacate the premises.
I wish I could be around to lead some of this – it would be a revolution I could get excited about. But I only have time to toss the ideas out there and hope the next generations get busy and act on them.
The videos and stories from the ongoing fires in LA are heartbreaking. It appears that thousands of homes will be destroyed. So many people losing their home and possessions…hard to fathom.
So far here at 7am, there’s wind but no fire outbreak. Winds are supposed to peak around noon, so if we can avoid fire until then our odds are good. But all it takes is one lunatic or one car hitting a rock, creating a spark. With 3 million people in our little corner of Socal, a lot can happen. We are 100% prepared and ready to bug out, so that feels good. All that’s left is waiting.
***
Update: As of 230pm, we still haven’t seen the predicted high winds in Fallbrook. That’s great news, obviously. Still have the afternoon and evening to get past, but things are looking up, at least in our neck of the woods. Northern LA, however, is horrific.
I’m not much of a worrier – I’m generally confident that I can handle anything that life throws at me. But I have to say, I’m worried today. The weather predictions for Socal over the next couple of days are ominous. I’ve got a bad feeling about the situation. Part of it may be election hangover pessimism, but…the predictions are ugly.
We haven’t had any rain this season. Since sometime in July last year, we’ve had zero. Nada. It’s the driest I’ve ever seen Socal. And now forecasters are saying we’re getting a record-setting Santa Ana wind for about 36 hours starting late this afternoon. In Fallbrook we’ll have 30+ mph winds from the north and northeast. In LA and OC they’ll have double or even triple that windspeed. That’ll be 36 hours of anticipation and dread, where we wonder if a fire will break out anywhere east of us and blow its way right through our house. Our wooden house.
About 10 million people in the affected area will be wondering the same thing. There’s no good defense for a wind-driven wildfire. And we’re guilty of having lush vegetation, mostly big eucalytptus trees, around our house.
The smart thing to do today is pack our vehicles with everything we want to save (or as much as will fit), and get ready to bug out. So we’ll do that today. Having done that in years past, it’s a clarifying exercise – you realize quickly what’s has meaning and what’s just “stuff”. We have plenty of the latter.
So yeah, it’s a little tense at the moment. I’ve lived through a wildfire at my doorstep (the big one in 2007), and it’s traumatic. We had a small one close to us a couple of months ago, but this is a much larger threat.
Title photo is from the 2003 fires in our old Scripps Ranch neighborhood.
Well, I missed the big snow in Louisville. While a foot of snow was coming down at our Louisville home, I was playing golf in 75 degree sunny weather. I like a snowy day, but I think I got the best end of the deal. Also glad I didn’t have a flight to SDF scheduled for this period. But Socal’s problems loom, as we have big fire risk (high winds and low humidity) the next few days. Big enough that SDGE says they’re likely to cut power in our area, using the Public Safety Power Shutoff clause in their charter. Our new Generac generator should negate that inconvenience for us.
Played golf yesterday with a couple of high rollers from Connecticut. Really nice guys, but definitely one percenters. One guy professed to having homes in Hawaii, La Jolla, Montana, Connecticut and who knows where else. The other was a private jet pilot who spends a lot of time ferrying other high rollers to Saudi Arabia at crazy costs. They were both interested in buying a yet another home or lot at the country club we played. Must be nice. Real estate is definitely an investment haven for the ultra-wealthy.
It’s January 6th, the day that MAGA stormed the capital four years ago, and the day that certain Rethuglicans now want to make a national holiday. Seriously? Jan 6 should be a civics lesson taught to every kid in school as an example of threats to democracy.
Today, while we have a crew here repairing tile in one of the bathrooms, I’m on a Youtube binge. I need to be available for questions and approvals, so…just killing time, and Youtube is one of the best ways I know. Vintage stereo, writing tips, UK basketball interviews, reviews of electronic gear, music…it’s all there. I could probably just kill all my (our) TV and streaming subscriptions and entertain myself with Youtube.
The game this morning, then an afternoon session at The Local Winery just down the hill, with wood fired pizza and great Italian wine. A few Cats fans down there to high five with. Doesn’t get much better. Not a bad start to 2025.
Today the Cats begin SEC play, with a home game against Florida. Weirdly, it starts at 8am Left Coast time. This’ll be the first Cats game in memory where the drink of choice is coffee.
I tried to sell my tickets online via the UK/Ticketmaster website, but no luck. I’m kind of surprised – I kept dropping the asking price, and for the last two days my seats were priced way under anything around them. But no takers. So they’re up for grabs among friends and family, though it may be too late for that. The impending big snowstorm threatening KY may have had something to do with folks planning (or not planning) to attend the game.
Real time update: my nephew’s family can use the seats. That’s good; happy for them.
Changing subjects, this seems like a good talking point for Democrats. CNN has a story in which a professor studied human trafficking (S American migrants to the US, not sex slaves) for seven years (!) and has now published his work. Here’s the political money quote:
Smugglers love Trump, because it’s a lot of bluster, and migrants don’t know that, so they can jack up their prices quickly. I would say Trump is good for the economy of undocumented migration. Smugglers are going, “OK, if you want to come now, the price has doubled, because it’s so much more dangerous now,” even though it’s probably not. I remember having lots of conversations with smugglers, who would say, “I love Trump. He makes our job easier and makes it easier for us to justify higher rates.”
I would beat the Republicans incessantly with that quote. “Smugglers love Trump…He makes our job easier..”. Sounds about right.
I spent a ton of time the last few days trying to get our Socal home’s insurance updated. Because the cretinous major insurers have run away from insuring homes in CA, we can’t get traditional homeowners insurance that includes fire. So we have two policies – one, a “traditional” homeowner’s policy that does NOT include fire, and a second fire-only policy from the California FAIR Plan, the insurer of last resort created by California government. I’ve managed to get both policies renewed for 2025, but the FAIR plan costs went up 63% in one year! So we now pay $4400/year for fire coverage alone, and that’s for a weak level of coverage – definitely not replacement cost. It’s not a sustainable situation. I’m thinking that $4400 might be better spent on private firefighter services. Gonna talk to my neighbors to see if they want to go in on some kind of collective protection by private firefighters.
I would love to see him start a nonprofit for children’s disease or hunger. Or shelter dogs. There’s a lot of misery in the world that you could fix, man.
I need to go see this during my January KY trip – eagles in Bernheim. Sounds like a great photo hike.
And speaking of the January KY trip, I need to go play some golf here in Socal before I travel to what looks to be a cold, cold state. There are a few benefits to being dual-homed, and golf in January is one of them.
