Category: California

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Dianne Feinstein is dead.

Condolences to her family.

Unlike the radical left, who dance on anyone’s grave that they disagree with,  I’m not going to jump for joy or say nasty things about her.

I didn’t agree with a lot of her policies. I really took offense when she was questioning a Marine a while ago and took him to task for politely using M’am instead of Senator. As in “Yes M’am” not “Yes Senator Feinstein”

I thought she was being overbearing and demonstrated how out of touch she was not only with Southerners (which the marine in question was,) but also with the Marine Corps itself who taught a level of decorum which included the use of the term “M’am”.

It was at that particular moment that I lost respect for Dianne Feinstein. At that moment she looked like she was more interested in badgering and bullying a young Marine than hearing his answer to her question. In that moment, I interpreted her entire career as about power not public service. 

I’ve thought for a long time that she should go. I thought she was losing touch with the realities of the world today and California in particular. She’d been in the Senate for far too long and had become isolated in the rarified air of Washington D.C.

It often seemed that she was more about the Washington Politics than about the people of California whom she was supposed to represent.

Over the past year or two it had become clear that Feinstein wasn’t doing all that well.

I thought it cruel that she was still being propped up and wheeled around while so obviously ill. The poor woman should have been home, enjoying her view.

Then again, having spent so much of her life in Washington D.C. it’s possible that she was more at home there, than in California.

For me Dianne Feinstein was a poster child for term limits. There have been many others, but she stuck out for me because she was one of my state senators.

Regardless of my personal opinions formed over the past decade or so… I’m sure that she did a lot of good in her idealistic youth and early years in Washington D.C. before politics consumed her. 

I sincerely hope she rests in peace.

Dianne Feinstein 1933-2023

Feinstein 1600

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I do not like this “New Normal”

I went shopping and did some errands on Tuesday.

The Auto Club was helpful and easy to work with. This was a new one for me, I’d been going to the one in Victorville and honestly hated it. I tried one near Rancho Cucamonga and had a much better experience.

I suppose that’s why we always went “down the hill” instead of to the closer towns in the area. It was just a nicer and more civilized experience.

After the Auto Club, I dropped by what used to be a great Best Buy…

This experience was not as nice. The shelves were bare, horribly disorganized, and over all the store was dark and dingy. I was completely ignored by all associates. This was particularly clear when I asked an associate to scan something so I could know what the price was… I was told, “I gotta clean up, I’ll be back in a few minutes,” as he walked off.

Let me be clear, this was not a janitor. This guy had been helping another person literally moments before, he hadn’t even logged out of his computer terminal yet. WOW! What fantastic customer service!

If I hadn’t really needed the item, I’d have bailed. Instead I finished my shopping, picked up a couple more items then went to the cash register.

I had the lady scan the questionable item before we began the transaction. I had a backup selection if the questionable item had been too expensive. It turns out the price was acceptable, so I left the backup selection at the register. They can restock it or simply throw it on some random shelf as it appears they’d done with most of the rest of their inventory.

There were employees wandering around in masks and it was a very unpleasant shopping experience. Best Buy will probably go the way of Frys. The employees are acting just like Fry’s employees acted near the end.

Then I headed over to Ralphs. I was able to find all but two items including a ton of stuff that I hadn’t been able to find at my local Stater Brothers for months.

The aisles were neat, people polite, and they had two doors to get folks into and out of the store easily without a traffic jam. Also I wasn’t being shocked every time I touched a freezer or shelving unit. I spent less at the Ralphs than I do at the Stater Brothers. That was surprising too.

As I was driving home, I was thinking that COVID panic really screwed up a lot of things. My local grocery store is much like the Best Buy. Dark, poorly organized, and with plenty of bare shelves and more than half the staff running around with masks on. It’s like they never recovered from the COVID mentality.

Then I thought about shopping in Florida. The Best Buy in Tampa is well lit, well stocked, and the employees are helpful. The Publix grocery store is like the Ralphs I was just in. I suppose Kroger owned stores in Florida would also be to the same standard although I haven’t, to my knowledge, shopped in a Kroger owned store in Florida.

Now with the Fall season upon us, we’re hearing about COVID again. “Mask Up”, “Get Jabbed”, “Be prepared for lockdowns” Why? COVID is technically endemic. It’s like the flu. Are the “Powers that Be” just trying to squeeze another year out of COVID panic, or are they really concerned? How can we know? They’ve lied so much, and been caught in their lies often enough that I, and apparently a lot of other people don’t trust them.

Is this too part of the “New Normal”? Once trusted organizations within and outside the government sphere are to be nothing more than noise, conflicting information, and lies?

I don’t like it one little bit. The “New Normal” SUCKS!!!

I suspect that nowhere does it suck worse than California and New York. Both will be stupidly compliant with whatever suggestion the government pulls out of its collective ass.

If Sniffy Joe said that we should all wrap our heads with Saran Wrap to ward off COVID while in our homes, and that it was mandatory. You can bet your ass that California and New York would fine anyone who disobeyed. No one would wrap their heads…

Well maybe there are some incredibly stupid people who would suffocate themselves with Saran Wrap, there were people who used aquarium cleaner as a cure for COVID and nearly died. Yeah, the aquarium cleaner has ivermectin in it, but the OTHER chemicals were completely ignored by these rocket scientists! Ya need to read the whole label morons! Honestly, they should have been allowed to Darwin themselves in peace. I digress…

We know the fines would go right into the stupid pile of money California and New York “BURN” everyday providing their respective citizens such lovely services as tattletale hotlines, and drone surveillance of our homes and yards.

The “New Normal” is new to us in the United States. But it’s old hat to folks from the former Soviet Union.

I suppose that’s why I don’t like the “New Normal” it feels a bit like what I imagined living under Soviet rule would have felt like.

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It’s a clean new morning!

A certain someone woke me as soon as he figured out the rain had stopped.

I have to admire the way the dog resets every day. He makes me smile more than most other things, so I’ll keep him around for now.

For those of you still below the grey cloud cover, here’s a sample of what you have to look forward to, later today.

The morning smells clean and fresh. The dog is beside himself exploring the yard. He’s already pushing for a walk, which he’ll get after I’ve had at least one cup of coffee…

I’m not sure if the trash folks are coming up today or not. I don’t know how crazy things are beyond what I can see.

I never lost power, or was inconvenienced in the least by the storm. I got to stay inside most of the day enjoying a movie or two, the dog cuddled up beside me with the sound of rain on the roof and the wash behind the house roaring away.

It looks like there’s some kind of inspection crew down at the bridge, I can see the lights but not what they’re doing. I guess I need a decent pair of binoculars at the very least.

I’ve been waiting for a pair that were all “techie” range finder, night vision, predator weapon interface. You know, loaded with SciFi shit like you see in the movies. You’d think by now someone would have put something like that together! 😁

I wanted to see if the smiley face would work. Don’t expect me to start communicating in modern hieroglyphics but I wanted to test it as an option.

It doesn’t look like there’s a lot to clean up immediately around the house. I’ll wander out in a bit to do an inspection just to make sure. I don’t believe there’s any damage either so I don’t have to deal with insurance claims or FEMA.

As you may have noticed I’ve posted some video in the past day or two. Yesterday it was because I was bored, and a video shot on my phone was not to my liking. I set about cleaning it up and learned more about editing video. I’ll never be a pro at it but it’s interesting to dabble with.

The reason I shot the video in the first place was to send to my neighbor who is helping out a sick loved one in Palm Springs and was curious about his house and the neighborhood. I suspect that he’s dealing with a number of messes out there which are more severe than what happened here.

Once I’d exhausted my patience with video stuff, I spent the rest of the day answering inquiries from family on the East Coast who had watched too much CNN. From the way they were talking I imagined CNN was saying that the end of days was here and it was starting in California?

Anyway after quieting their concerns and reminding them all that an 8000 Ft mountain stood between me and the storm, they lapsed back to normal anxiety levels. I’m so confident about my mountain I dare a CAT 5 hurricane to hit it directly!

Bring it! Mother Nature.

Seriously, most storms that come in from the South are gutted on the peaks of the mountains. I live in their shadow, the upside is those storms I don’t usually worry about too much, the down side is that in winter it’s dark at my house by 3pm.

The only storms I really worry about are those swirling storms that come in from the North. Those are usually bitterly cold and batter the town for days on end.

Those of you who were impacted by the storm, I hope you fared at least as well as I did. Remember things are still gooey in some places. So pay attention and don’t take any chances with mud or innocent puddles across the roads.

Have a good day

I just found out that part of my little town is cut off due to some roads and bridges being washed out. This doesn’t affect me per se because I don’t need to go anywhere today or probably tomorrow. When I secured the place due to the unknowns of the storm, I secured to stay in place for days… Even a week or two if necessary.

I find that having laid in supplies, having a plan, and not having to go anywhere tends to make me a whole lot calmer about this sort of thing.