Author: wwducat

About: Writer, Technology guy, Photographer, Possibly EX-Software QA Engineer, Worker Bee. Interests: SCUBA, Working out, Friends, New Views, New Vistas, Photography
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I ran across these two articles and thought I’d share.

Agree or not with the source website www.outspoken.com, the articles themselves have merit.

Both articles are in my mind, opinion pieces.

The first one is about a Michelangelo Signorile piece that appears in the Los Angeles Blade

After reading the Signorile piece which is also an opinion piece I can kinda see both sides. I’m not sure that Signorile is completely wrong, nor am I sure that the Outspoken piece is completely right. What I can say is that the Outspoken piece seems closer to my own opinion.

Signorile, seems very concerned that Tucker Carlson is adamantly opposed to the sexualization of children, a belief that I happen to share. Additionally, Signorille is upset that Tucker Carlson’s producer is a gay man.

That kind of blows the hell out of Tucker Carlson being a homophobe doesn’t it?

What Signorile seems to miss is that most gay people aren’t activists, and do believe that children should be children.

Signorille, accuses Tucker Carlson’s production guy of being a self loathing closet case. I think that’s out of line.

Most of the gay men I know, privately share concern about sexualization of children and what appears to be a transgender “fad”.

While they’re not opposed to adult transgender people choosing to undergo medical procedures to align their physical gender with their internal view of themselves. Those same men, don’t think it’s healthy or wise to begin transition of children who most likely don’t have the emotional or cognitive abilities to understand what exactly transitioning means.

That doesn’t mean they’re self loathing, closeted, or hateful. It means that they have questions and concerns. The Outspoken piece touches on a fundament truth. The LGBTQ+ community does not tolerate dissenting opinions. Signorille demonstrates this in his piece.

The lived experiences of the men I’ve spoken to is that they have all been shoved into a different metaphorical closet, not by people like Tucker Carlson, but by the LGBTQ+ community itself.

This is easily demonstrated by the fact that conversations about not sexualizing children, not allowing children to begin transitioning by administration of puberty blockers, and indeed that these men might on occasion watch Tucker Carlson or read Outspoken are only whispered about in private, among people that they trust.

This behavior isn’t because of Tucker Carlson, it’s because if it were to become known that these men had differing opinions, they’d be hounded by the rabid elements of the LGBTQ+ community who have become well known for Doxxing, and causing trouble, or destroying people they disagree with.

Granted, most of the men I’m speaking about don’t interact with the LGBTQ+ community, but they aren’t interested in making enemies of that community either. After all, these men have lives, homes, husbands, and in some cases families.

When you settle down and make a life, you take actions to protect that life. Angry blue haired, genderfuck drag activists, screaming from the sidewalk make the neighbors and HOA’s cranky.

In my case, after 34 years living with my partner, mostly in the same neighborhood, I’m just one of the guys. None of my very straight neighbors care that I sleep with another dude. I’ve got tools, knowhow, and willingness to lend a hand. Failing those useful attributes, I’ve got knowledge of how to use a shovel, a pair of hands, and a more or less strong back. Plus I like knocking back a beer with the guys after work from time to time.

In other words… I’m living my life exactly as I hoped and worked to live it. My rights are as secure as any of my neighbors. Nobody from the government is going to roll up and demand I surrender my house or possessions because I live with a man. Contrary to what the LGBTQ+ activists might choose to believe.

Which brings me to the second article, also from Outspoken and linked here. The title is, Biden’s diversity hires are not the role models we need

In this article, I find that I’m in complete agreement.

I’m in favor of letting your freak flag fly. But the freakier folks from the LGBTQ+ community get, the more I’m simply embarrassed.

When I think of the folks I grew up with and how they must look at these sterling examples of the LGBTQ+ community I’m mortified. There are places in the United States and perhaps the world where the only examples of the LGBTQ+ community are people like Biden’s diversity hires.

Gettyimages 1181909470 e1571862959659In the case of Buttigieg and Jean Pierre, at least they look like everyone else. But their record of achievements leaves something to be desired.

In the case of Buttigieg, his MIA act when the country was in a shipping crisis was not looked upon kindly. Yes, I know he has newborns, but there are simply times when you don’t leave your post.

Karine Jean Pierre Makes History at White House Press BriefingJean Pierre, is doing the best she can, of that I’m sure. Her problem is that she always seems unprepared. I’d imagine that her blood pressure is ringing the “DANGER WILL ROBINSON” bell every single day after Biden or Harris have spoken publicly. That she’s appearing unprepared is making the public wonder if LGBTQ+ people are competent especially considering that Buttigieg hadn’t been doing too much to get things moving seamlessly again.

BrintonThen we get to Sam Brinton. All I can say is what the fuck? I cringe everytime he/she/it/zem/zer, whatever the hell, shows up in the paper, or on TV.

Look, you can engage in gender fuck drag all you want to, you can dress up in puppy play outfits and put a dildo up your ass that looks like a dogs tail. I honestly don’t care. Hell, I’ve been to some wild assed parties too. The difference is, when the party was over for me, it was over.

All the crazy stuff was put in the toy chest for next time, and I returned to “The Real World” with a dirty smile on my face. Never in a million years would I expect to live my sexual escapades 24/7 in the public eye or at my place of business. None of the other people I’ve worked with put their personal life on display and I know that some of those straight people were into shit that’s as kinky as me. It’s just not done, It’s a distraction and not germane to conducting business. Personally, I found the plethora of dirty smiles on Monday mornings to be a lot more amusing.

Rachel levineLast on the hit parade is Rachel Levine. I can’t say anything more than Really? Come on man.

This is not to say that transgender folks should be discriminated against but you know what? FDR was mindful of public impression long before the internet and 24/7 news cycles.

He knew that how the public viewed him could make or break his ability to lead the nation. Which is why it was only very rarely that you saw him using crutches or a wheelchair.

Rachel Levine’s face is not one that inspires confidence. As a dude he’d have been marginal at best. As a woman, he/she is laughable. I honestly can’t think of a single thing Levine has said that has made it past my visual filters and into my memory. Biden would’ve  have been better off not filling the position at all, than putting Levine in.

My point is, when some people in our country see these “shining examples” from the LGBTQ+ community, they draw conclusions. Sometimes those conclusions are completely incorrect and engender fear.

When people are afraid, they do stupid and sometimes hurtful things.

I’d submit that the Biden administration has done more to endanger LGBTQ+ people than conservatives or even rabid religious types.

I suggest this, because instead of presenting LGBTQ+ people who look like the kind of folks mainstream America would encounter in their offices or on their work sites, the Biden administration looks like they sought out the most shocking and disturbing examples of LGBTQ+ and then shoved them down the American people’s throats.

Some opposition to “Drag Time Story Hour” might be due to Brinton and Levine.

I can say this, Biden’s picks don’t represent me, or most of my friends.

Oh, I have to go… The orgy is starting and I don’t want sloppy seconds!

Just kidding, I thought I’d have a little fun with it.

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I was updating my calendar today, when I remembered new gas car sales in California would be banned in 2035.

As a lark, I thought, “Well I should probably put that in the calendar.”

After pressing “save” I wondered two things.

1 Would I be around to give a crap?
2 What will the world look like then?

It’s possible I could still be around, It’s unlikely that I’ll give a crap about it. This is potentially a two fold issue. It’s likely that I’ll be in an old folks home griping about the consistency of my pudding. It’s also likely that I’ll not be in California. In either situation, I doubt I’ll give a crap.

That leaves the second question, what will the world look like in 2035? I’ll be somewhere in my mid 70’s. It’s possible that I might still have my mind in more or less working order. Being a male at that age would be a bit of a rarity in my family so I might be well on the way to checking out for the long dirt nap.

In the 1960’s there was an optimism about the new modern wonders of science and technology. I remember magazines telling us we’d all have flying cars in 20 years. I’m glad I didn’t hold my breath on that one. When I moved to Los Angeles in my 20s and saw how messed up the traffic was, I knew we weren’t going to have flying cars.

People were incapable of driving on a wide, well maintained road, without hitting each other. The thought of those same people flying overhead was truly terrifying. Flaming wrecks raining down on unsuspecting neighborhoods is not something I’d sign up for.

This observation was made well before the distractions of cell phones, and text messages. As those devices became more ubiquitous the accident rate went up, even though the average speeds on the freeways went down. Honestly, how can you have accidents on a roadway where everyone is creeping along at 20mph?

Barrel Racing

If the California freeways get much slower, horses will become the preferred method of travel again. At least then, people will be able to text and play games on their cellphones without worry. Horses aren’t likely to run into each other because they’re paying attention.

I suppose there would have to be horse sex insurance policies though. I’m not sure how copulation of your transportation would affect your morning commute. However, it might settle the question of just how many genders there are, an added bonus would be that nobody would have to be a biologist to get the picture.

Funny thing about it, is that might be the best case scenario.

The way things are going, I’m actually beginning to wonder if Mad Max, Escape from New York, The Omega Man, or Book of Eli, is a more likely scenario. It’s possible that gas powered vehicles and electric vehicles may end up being moot points.

If WWIII happens, humanity if it survives at all, might be knocked back to hunter gatherers sitting around a fire pit burning books that no-one remembers how to read or bits of furniture that nobody wants to carry around.

190620 Nuclear test iStock 936338912

We might not even need WWIII to get there.

It could all go the way of Atlas Shrugged. Inconvenient science and / or truths could simply be placed under some overarching government control and suppressed.

Why would people keep working, innovating, and making discoveries if they knew the government and over-regulation would create hurdles so high they personally couldn’t profit from their efforts?

In a way, I wonder if we’re not already on the leading edge of this sort of thing. We’ve heard of quiet quitting in businesses. Is it possible that all the people who are not participating in the workforce are engaging in some unseen herd mentality, a.k.a quiet quitting?

Why should people continue to seek employment in a system that keeps taxing income at ever increasing rates to fund wars, or government entities that they have no control over, and no say in? Why bother to open businesses or create something new, if the state or federal government is just going to take a substantial chunk because the government believes they’re entitled to it?

Isn’t this, at least in part, what happened in the old USSR?

I find the Atlas Shrugged scenario far more disturbing than WWIII. In a nuclear war, it would all be over pretty fast. In Atlas Shrugged it took along time to crush the human spirit into the dust. It was brutal, systematic, and normal.

Good ideas were nationalized, or legislated out of existence. The powerful people in control continued rearranging the deck chairs on The Titanic until everything completely broke down. They’d dis-incentivized knowledge to the point that even when the stole the patents on Reardon Steel, they had no-one who could take over the foundry, and no raw materials to use even if they’d had skilled people.

The politicians in the story, all believed they were doing the right thing. The believed they were the good guys right up to the end, and had no clue why everything broke. In should be noted that Hitler, Stalin, and Chairman Mao all thought they were the good guys… Just Sayin.

That to me is far more frightening.

In that scenario, there were still large populations in cities who were suddenly plunged into the dark. The story of the morning after would be very interesting. I’ll have to check if Ayn Rand wrote a follow on.

I see the morning after as a period of shock and confusion. Then when water stops running from the tap, sewage backs up, and enough people are hungry, looting starts. At first it will be all the bright shiny things that average people couldn’t afford. That would happen because they’d be hoping things would return to normal and all those luxuries would once again have value.

Lomaprietaquake

Then as hunger became more intense, practical things would be looted from grocery stores. When the stores were empty, the populations in the cities would turn on each other. As the resources dried up, the survivors would spread out. The most brutal of these would be on top as full anarchy and tribal warfare blossomed. After that, it’s anybody’s guess how society would change.

I suspect we all saw what it might look like when Seattle allowed the autonomous zone called CHOP, or CHAZ, (whatever,) to come into being.

There are those who flippantly say, “Well I’ll be fine, I’ve got food, I’ve got water,” them I ask, “how many bullets do you have and how good a shot are you?”

The implied question is, “how many people are you ready to kill?” This doesn’t even address the fact that bullets are a finite resource. When you run out, what do you do then?

This is why the Atlas Shrugged scenario is more scary to me personally.

It’s also why, if I were offered a way off this planet I’d take it in a heartbeat. I’d prefer to live out my days quietly even if it was among an alien race. I don’t want to watch or participate in my own species destroying itself.

Alliance carrier tereshkova class by euderion d9i88m2

In the second or two after I had these thoughts, I closed the calendar application.

Somewhere on a server 500 miles or so, away from me, a notation has been made that sale of new gas vehicles will be illegal in California in 2035. I’m curious if I or anyone will care when that notification pops up.

It’s possible we’ll all have far more immediate concerns on Jan 1, 2035. Alternatively, I could be dead by then and not care about it in the least.

Funny how I get sidetracked from the simplest of things. At least this time, I’d updated my calendar before I thought about the 2035 deadline.

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Twitter is starting to look interesting again!

I’ll admit, Twitter can be a dumpster full of burning poop. It had become so rancid and flat out hateful that I left the platform.

In the early days, before the Woke mob was allowed to take over and began dictating what could be said and by whom, Twitter was actually a lot of fun.

FYRkiAyXwAEaitP

It could be a time suck, but not the the extent that FaceBook was. I never had a ton of followers. Followers wasn’t my intent, I had a small group of friends on the platform that knew each other in real life. We “played” on Twitter.

We found the challenge of making our point in 120 characters stimulating. Dirty Haikus, or Limericks were shared among us and we made each other laugh. We were sarcastic, irreverent, and sometimes very blunt. We were friends. Sometimes it takes a real friend to metaphorically, “knock you upside your head,” by calling you out on something stupid you’ve done or are about to do.

In the early days, all of that was permitted and since none of us had thousands of followers, the reach was limited. As the platform grew, more oblique connections were made. Suddenly, someone that you met at a party would feel that they had the right to tell you what a bastard you were based on their reading of an out of context Tweet they read. Then their followers would pile on without knowing anything about the situation at all.

What these people forgot was that the initial small cadre of actual real life friends communicated in person and a snarky comment might have been the result of something that one person actually witnessed the other one doing.

Admittedly most of my followers were guys, and most of their followers were also guys. Guys bust each other’s chops on a regular basis, and the closer they are, the more brutal the teasing, or yanking each other’s chains can be. The small cadre of friends I followed and who followed me were pretty tight, there was a lot of trash talking which was no different on Twitter than if we were face to face.

What we forgot was that Twitter’s algorithm was presenting our engagement with each other on the platform as something of interest to other people that we didn’t know and who we’d probably never meet, much less hang with. Those people could follow us and read our comments.

The difference was that If my friends and I busted each other’s chops in a bar, someone else in the bar might have taken offense, but they had the social context of the bar and our body language as cues that we liked or even loved each other and social decorum prevented a complete stranger from commenting on what was essentially a private conversation between friends. Granted that “private conversation” may have been us yelling at the top of our lungs over loud music.

Twitter effectively removed all of the social cues and context, leaving only the words. We knew what we meant, but to an outside observer what was said could look pretty bad.

It was at this point that the judgement of others began to have a really nasty effect on our goofy conversations. We could say stuff like, “I don’t know how you get a date micro dick.” Where the reply would be, “Your sister liked it well enough and BTW you’re going to be an uncle!”

That joking screwing around would generate a firestorm of comments about hurtful demeaning words, and judgmental comments about irresponsible sex.

Then it got worse. Suddenly, the respondent would be a misogynistic, evil, CIS, privileged, male. Sometimes there’d be a day or two of hate directed at both parties for demeaning women and accusations of intent to rape.

The incessant comments along these lines were coming from complete strangers and any of the other core group of friends who might have commented on the initial exchange were subject to the same vitriol.

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Almost inevitably some outraged SJW would report one or all of us to Twitter for offending them and we’d all be in a Twitter timeout. It progressively got worse. There was always someone searching for something… anything, they could be pissed off about. There’s nothing so dampening of free speech as complete strangers “Judging” every word or phrase. There were people on Twitter who felt it necessary to correct sentence structure and punctuation on Tweets where they were not invited to the conversation, didn’t know any of the participants, and didn’t understand the context.

Who does that? Those same people would take our ignoring them as some kind of victory. Or they’d say we were mean because we didn’t respond to their unsolicited advice. It became a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.

I personally got Twitter Jailed for asking one of these people, “Do we know you? If not butt out!” Apparently, the Twitter censors deemed that “Hate Speech”

So we got in the habit of censoring ourselves publicly and DMing our trash talk to each other. Then we thought, “If we’re having to DM anyway let’s just use text messages.” At that point, the fun group nature of our Twitter interactions died. Replacing it was group texts which made easing out of Twitter easier.

The thing we all miss is that Twitter provided other services. We’d see and share news articles we encountered on Twitter and comment to each other on them. It was great fun over breakfast to discuss the latest Twitter deuce Trump dropped over breakfast.

We do that now in group texts but it’s not quite the same. On Twitter, the news piece was linked in a way that we could view it on the platform and comment. Using group texts we have to pull the piece up on its originating platform and sometimes that doesn’t work quite right.

The group of friends considered and tried other platforms. But those platforms were being inundated with the same people who’d made Twitter simply useless. The same rules applied and everything said was subjected to scrutiny reserved usually for legal documents. We tried Parler and had a brief period of the kind of freedom we had initially with Twitter.

That is until Google, Apple, and Amazon decided that freedom of speech even non-political speech was a bad thing. When Parler was murdered by the big three, group text messaging was cemented as the goto communication method for my small group of buds.

Since Elon Musk has taken over Twitter, we’ve become curious. All of us are tech folks, and Twitter is very nice in allowing access to the stream of comments without having to create accounts. We’ve all been watching and reading tweets and have noticed that off color humor is returning. We’ve also noticed that things which could not have been said a mere 9 months ago are not only being said, but are also being promoted in the trends.

We’re asking if perhaps it’s time to create new Twitter accounts and go back to the fun we once enjoyed on the platform. My friends and I haven’t reached consensus yet. But we are sharing some of the funny memes that are reappearing and not being taken down instantly.

It would be fun to be able to share our camaraderie on a single platform without worry again.

The question is, do we want to have to deal with a bunch of assholes that want to be offended and literally search for anything to be pissed off about?

For the moment, we don’t. But the discussion is open.

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Hmmm, Getting the first data about energy production from the Solar Panels.

IMG 2474

Yesterday was the first full day of Solar Panel operation. The panels themselves went online Nov 30th about midday.

The website and the mobile application provide pretty nice insight into the system status. What’s very cool is that I can see individual panel production and therefore can see if a panel is having trouble.

I’m figuring that we’ll run for several months before deciding if the system needs to be tweaked or if adding battery backup would be something useful.

One of the things that was befuddling me when we got into this, was that a solar array of interconnected panels would only produce power skewed to the lowest common denominator. 

In other words, the laziest panel on the roof would drag all the other panels to its level not the other way around. When I was a kid playing with Radio Shack solar panels, this effect really annoyed me. I kept adding panels to a small array but the voltage never increased above the output of my oldest little panel. Oddly and very confusing to my little child brain taking that oldest panel out of the circuit, then measuring I’d see the best output from the next lowest producing panel and so on.

I could see the pattern, but couldn’t explain what I was seeing. I hadn’t really thought about it until we began this project.

I’d seen a similar effect with my portable panels while recharging battery packs, but it was so negligible in that application that I’d just shrugged and moved on to something else I was doing around the house. In that case, either way, the battery pack would be recharged in 3 or 4 hours, so the impact wasn’t a big deal.

When you’re talking about a large array on your roof that’s costing you money and it’s supposed to lower your electric bill you kinda want to know these things. Well, at least I do.

I was really confused on Wednesday, when I got a look inside the “Controller box” mounted on the wall of the house. I was expecting to see a D/C (Direct Current) to A/C (Alternating Current) conversion device, but what I saw instead was more or less standard A/C connections and breakers.

The mystery deepened, I did see a coil of the type that’s used to detect current flowing through wire. In fact it had a single wire running through it. That wire went to a grounding block, the coil itself was connected to a small digital circuit board mounted at the very back of the controller box. This board was in no way going to be capable of handling the kind of power that could be coming from the panels on the roof. Looking at it, I thought, “That much power would turn that board into a burnt green popcorn kernel.”

The mystery deepened. The installer had no information about the details. He was just finalizing the A/C hookup to the house. But I saw inside the Controller Box, a makers logo.

“To the Internet, Boy Blunder!” Yeah, as a kid in the 1960’s I watched “Batman” and I read “Mad Magazine”. What of it?

When I got to the manufacturer’s web site. All was revealed.

Turns out, each panel has its own inverter attached to it. Meaning the D/C to A/C conversion is done at the panel. As I read the specs and dug into the installer side of the website I sat there going, “Duh!!!”

The design is brilliant. Since the power coming from the panels is already A/C it’s just a matter of connecting the array to the house A/C (with some safety features of course,)

Electricity flows a lot like water. If there’s more electricity coming from the house then it flows back into the grid. This is a gross oversimplification but it’s easy to visualize.

Since the D/C to A/C conversion is done on panel, each panel can produce at its own rate without the other panels affecting it, or it affecting the other panels.

That mystery was solved, so what is this controller doing? 

It’s talking to each of the inverters on the panel, and then sending that data to me, and sending it to the installation company so they can address any warranty issues and they’ll know if a panel needs servicing. It also allows accounting. Since the system knows how much power each panel is producing, and therefore what the array is producing the Electric company can’t get away with “fudging” the numbers about credit owed.

The Controller monitors how much power we use, how much power is produced, simple math calculates the difference. It’s the difference that gets sent back to the electrical grid for the power company to “purchase” from me as an electrical producer.

The Controller also provides for the addition of battery backup, and would manage a switchover if needed due to a power failure.

Another thing I didn’t realize was that if the main power goes off and I don’t have a battery backup, I’ll still be without power. 

I understood that I’d be without power if a power failure happened at night, but I thought if the power was off during the day, I’d still have my fridge and essentials running. That’s not the case.

Thinking about it it makes sense. It’s a safety feature. If I’m generating power at my end and feeding it back into the main electrical grid, then the electrical linemen could never work on the power lines. The lines would always be powered up until each house with solar panels was physically disconnected from the grid.

The Controller box handles that automatically in the configuration I’ve got installed.

I’m thinking that a battery pack is probably in the future.

I don’t want the hassle and noise of a gas powered generator running during a power outage.

When the inspection was finished, the solar guy pulled off the protective plastic on the controller box and voila the manufacturer’s logo is now visible. 

I knew I shoulda peeked under that protective plastic film. I’d have been able to have my questions answered a lot sooner!

Now I just have to wait. A couple of months of runtime data and I’ll be in a better position to decide if I need to add a couple of panels and what size battery pack I’ll need to install. 

I’ll also need to figure out if making those modifications will add to the overall value of the house if I decide to sell it.

I also suspect that if I leave California, where-ever I move to, I’ll be installing Solar probably with batteries because I like the idea of being able to sail through power outages without really noticing them.

I don’t like to be inconvenienced!

Call me a snooty, spoiled, first world person if you like!

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My GOD! I hate Bureaucratic little despots!

The saga of the solar panel installation may be coming to an end.

That’s a good thing. I’m really kinda over it. As in losing my ability to give a shit!

This morning, the final inspection is supposed to take place. The representative from the panel installation company has been out. He’s doing some final tweaks which is a good thing.

But first thing this morning he hands me a clipboard with a a county form on it asking me to sign to attest that I have smoke a CO2 sensors in my house. The paperwork also wanted to verify that the water heater is grounded. It’s natural gas, and the pipes in the house are copper going to ground. So uh yeah! The water heater is freaking grounded!

I ask him what any of this has to do with the dang solar panels on the roof.

He’s not sure, it’s just something The County requires.

I look at the form and tell him I’m going to get my glasses to be able to throughly read the document he’s handing me, so that I know what I’m actually signing.

When I come back, the first thing I notice is that the documents have someone else’s name and address on them. So I ain’t signing shit.

But it got me to thinking.

The invasiveness of regulations has been a royal pain in my ass since this house was rebuilt, and even before then.

When I bought this house, there was a fire suppression system installed. This was mandated by the County when the house was originally built in 1992. For 15 years or so, I paid $300.00 every year to have someone come out and inspect the system. This was to prevent the antifreeze from draining out of the suppression system back into the main water lines.

When the house burned, the fire alarms worked, the fire suppression system didn’t. One of the inspectors had left the dang valves closed so that fancy assed fire suppression system was offline. (That’s what comes from constantly fiddling with something. The possibility of mistakes increases.)

When we rebuilt the house, the county mandated that he have 6 CFB fixtures built into the ceiling of the house (This was more lights than we had total in the house prior to it burning.) Supposedly this was to make the house more energy efficient. I asked the building inspector how having more lights in the house made the house more energy efficient. Those lights still pulled, (at the time 40W). 

Five years later someone in the State of California noticed that compact fluorescent bulbs contained mercury vapor. Fluorescent lights have always contained mercury vapor. That’s how they work. OMG! These bulbs if improperly disposed of can be environmentally dangerous! 

A few years after that, someone else realized that as these bulbs age they can emit high levels of UV, which might be hazardous. Again, DUH! It’s not rocket science. Pass a current at a specific frequency through mercury vapor and it emits UV light, coat the inside of a glass tube with a fluorescent material that glows when exposed to UV light and you get visible light.

It’s simple science. Pity we apparently don’t teach Science anymore.

At the time I was laughing because it was another case of unintended consequences due to petty bureaucrats deciding they had a good idea with absolutely zero knowledge of the underpinning science and therefore no understanding of the potential consequences. I also had a good laugh at the sudden plethora of UV sensors that hit the market to make sure you were safe from the evil older CFBs the State demanded you put in your house.

My sensor, was my glasses. Yeah, my Photo-chromic eyeglasses. See, they darken due to UV light so if I suspected that a CFB was aging or the fluorescent coating was getting flaky, I’d hold my eyeglasses near the bulb. If they got dark, I knew it was time to change the bulb.

Again, if you know how things work at a basic level, you can save yourself $29.95! Unfortunately, retrofitting the fixtures to LED costs a lot of money. Although, all of the other lights in the house with standard A26 screw in sockets have been updated to LED and if those lights are on full blast they use less power than the fluorescent fixtures. 

Move forward a couple of years and the County comes through telling us that we have to remove plants at the very edge of our property line from our landscaping because these plants can burn. Uh yeah sure, but the plants in question have been in that position on the property for 20 years. Oh and they survived the actual house fire that burned the house to the ground. Not to mention that ALL plants can burn!

Another expense, due to bureaucrats. I just know one day these morons are going to figure out that native Pine Trees can burn and demand the removal of trees from my property.

FYI, some of these trees have been here since before the house was. I also water them regularly because I happen to like trees. That’s becoming more difficult due to water restrictions in California, however I’ve adapted.

In Winter, I pile the snow up around the trees and in my yard in general. It doesn’t last the whole summer, but the trees are watered by this process throughout the spring and into early summer.

Again, not rocket science, just using the natural elements and conditions to my, (and the trees,) advantage.

It’s really common sense. 

Move forward 10 years after the house was rebuilt, and the fire suppression system FAILS, flooding my living room. Oh, we’d been having it inspected every year like usual. Guess what? While the specialized Fire Suppression contractor was repairing the system, they discovered that the system had been installed incorrectly in the first place and the petty bureaucrat of a building inspector has missed the fault. At this point in time however, I got to pay for the repair and fight with the insurance company about it.

Ahhh, my tax dollars at work!

I probably wouldn’t be so annoyed except that county inspectors kept blowing off their appointments when the house was being rebuilt. It was so frequent that about 3 months got added onto the building cycle and not one of them ever thought to apologize about missing appointments.

So here we are, trying to get the solar panels finished. Once again I’m being held up because of a country inspector who probably doesn’t have a clue about the actual power going through the cables or how the system works in detail. This is the building equivalent of TSA bag checks, or the masking controversy with COVID or half a dozen other examples of hand waving without actually doing something functional.

That’s the sad part of this, we’re trying to “Go Green,” after all. Isn’t that what gruesome Newsome & Sniffy Joe want us to do?  Note the panels have been on the roof since June 2022.

Today the solar panel company sent their guy out and he arrived on time, we’re still waiting for the County Inspector to show up. At this point that county jackass is two hours late after specifying a two hour window. The difference between a business, and bureaucrats feeding on the tax payer dime is striking!

I doubt that the panels will be operational today, and it might not be until Spring of 2023 at this point. I could still be surprised, but I’m not foolish enough to hold my breath.

I’m debating about giving the county jackass a dressing down when they get here. If you’re going to make an appointment, you keep it. If you’re going to be late, you call. It’s just common courtesy.

On the one hand that might prevent me from getting the panels online, and could subject me to a bunch more County bullshit. On the other hand, if no-one calls jackasses out for being jackasses, they’ll never change except to get worse.

The County person arrived. She was late but didn’t bother to apologize. I kept my mouth shut and went back inside the house. 

A half hour later, the solar guy says the inspection is good, and that the panels are online. 

I guess I could have held my breath! I’m calling this a good day.