Category: California

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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.

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I’m very conflicted

I was thinking about removing the other half from the voter roles. There’s no conflict there, it should be done for the sake of clarity and also to make sure that some damn mail in ballot (Automatic in Kommifornia) doesn’t end up being used in his name. What’s that old joke? Something about voting Democrat all your life and well beyond? I can’t remember…

But then I got to thinking about it. Why not remove myself from he voter roles too?

I’ve become so disheartened voting in California that I feel it’s pointless. The recent Redistricting has reduced the power of what used to be a fairly conservative voting block in this area to almost nothing.

Our town is now part of Pasadena. The towns to the north have been sliced and divided into the liberal gimme gimme gimme crowd in the large city North of them, The other mountain communities have been folded into the crime ridden Democrat utopias in the valleys.

All this, mind you was done in the interest of “Joining like minded communities, with similar needs.” Uh Huh… sure, gerrymandering the lines the way it was done was about similar needs.

Nope! It was about weakening the voice of a fairly conservative block of voters in the mountain / high desert communities. Who by the way have almost nothing in common with the urban areas they were sliced and diced then distributed into. I can tell you without much doubt the only time Pasadena thinks about the mountains or the people living here is when they want to ski.

Then, the only concern they have for those of us who live here, is when they treat us like “THE HELP” and bitch that their TESLA can’t make it up the icy road. It’s so gratifying to be coming out of the grocery store with a couple of items and be screamed at to “DO YOUR JOB, clear this ice out so I can be on my way…”

But it’s also funny when a working guy who’s walked a mile or two, to the grocery store to get milk for his kids whips out a largish buck knife and punctures the sidewalls of two of the TESLAS’s tires as he walks by, never saying a word.

I’ve actually seen that happen. I thought the Tesla driver was going to have a stroke! I’ve also been screamed at as though I was a servant. I didn’t have a large buck knife at the time. (I do now.) But I lost my shit at the woman screaming at me, demanding that I dig her out.

It should be noted that I didn’t have a shovel so apparently this insane bitch thought I should be on my knees in the snow digging with my hands, instead of going back to my warm home with the goods I’d just purchased in the store.

UHHH NOPE!

I told her to call AAA. She replied they told her the wait was going to be 6 hours. Well, I guess you’ll have to wait 6 hours then… That’s what started the extremely hostile exchange between that bitch and myself. She didn’t seem to understand that 1) I didn’t work for her. 2) The town wasn’t like Disneyland or WestWorld. 3) That speaking to a free man like she was speaking to me less than 2 miles from his home wasn’t likely to get her the desired result because surprise! I wasn’t a slave. 4) I hate with every fiber of my being entitled skanks like her.

I did feel sorry for her son sitting in the back seat. He seemed truly mortified at his mother’s behavior. Every time she started screaming, he slid further down in the seat.

A couple of enterprising young men approached her with shovels, they had a large well equipped 4×4, & really nice tow straps, (the kind that are unlikely to do damage if they slip or break). They offered to get her back on her way for $500.00. These guys directed her to the bank ATM because they wanted cash.

Smart boys.

She really freaked out then. Threatening to give the town a bad review on yelp. The young men, several other locals, and myself all had a good laugh over that one. Fuck Yelp!

She refused, and the young men left to go “Help” the next unprepared moron.

It should be pointed out, this particular moronic woman and he child were not in any danger whatsoever. They could retire to the grocery store, or any of the restaurants within easy walking distance.

I digress…

In any case, I don’t much see the point of voting in California anymore. I honestly don’t see the point in voting in national elections anymore. The evil machine in Washington DC will NEVER release its parasitic hold on the levers of power.

The never ending impeachment / indictment/ sabotage / corruption / and double standards we’ve see over the past 16 years in our Government is plenty of evidence.

The United States of America is dead. May it rest in peace. The great experiment ran its course and the conclusion is humans were born to be dominated. When given freedom and justice they squander it, preferring instead to be ruled over by emperors, kings, dictators, or whatever else.

The bottom line is humanity desires to be slaves to anything, just as long as they don’t have to be responsible for themselves.

This country died and nobody noticed. I wonder how similar the USA’s death was to the Roman Empire’s? Did Rome just one day cease to be relevant? Did the Roman emperor just one day realize he controlled nothing?

With all the migrants, the divisiveness, and dysfunction, whatever rises to replace the USA will probably look a lot like the governments the migrants were trying to escape. It’s not the migrants fault per se, they’re coming here and bringing what they know and are familiar with. The fact that these migrants are from virtually every country on the planet means that all those voices will demand things be done “their way” and then it’s just a matter of time before the country gets sliced and diced up so that it looks more like Europe or the Middle East.

There was a time when I actually thought voting mattered. There was a time when I believed that my voice counted. I was stupid and terribly naive.

I do hope someone keeps a copy of The Constitution. I fear however that we’ll have an orgy of book and document burning that would be the envy of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.

Yeah, I think I’ll remove myself from voter registration. At least until I move somewhere that my voice might have a chance of being heard, and my vote counted. Neither of those things will happen while I’m in Kommifornia.