Category: Musings

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Turn off the dang lights!

I haven’t been sleeping too well. Apologies for being a bit cranky. We’ve had a number of city neighbors moving in to town who apparently don’t know how to turn off a light switch.

There are nights I feel like I’m living on the runway of LAX.

When I first moved up here, it was to get away from the city. On a clear night I could see the Milky Way easily from my yard or deck. The stars were bright and clear. You could even see that some of them were different colors with the naked eye.

Over the decades, light pollution has become increasingly problematic. Now the lights of the Victorville area have grown to the point that you can’t see any of the night sky near the horizon if you’re looking to the North. Victorville and surrounding communities drown out the starlight. If you looked up you could still see the majority of the stars, so that was okay.

However, as more city people moved into my little town, they’ve gotten in the habit of leaving their exterior lights on all night. Some of them have floodlights that blink on and off all night long.

Night isn’t dark anymore. At 3am I can easily wander around my house with no lights because the light from surrounding neighbors spilling through my windows is so bright.

Over the past year, I noticed that I couldn’t see Orion anymore. At first I thought I was just looking for him on cloudy nights, but on a clear moonless night in January I realized the truth. I could not longer see my friends Orion or Ursa Major because my neighbors have the entire town lit up like an LA street. The only thing missing now is stadium lights on the tops of the mountains shining down on the village.

Right now, every night the light is brighter than what we used to call twilight. It’s only getting worse.

Why are city people so afraid of the dark?

Night used to bring out owls, raccoons, opossums, cute little kangaroo mice, the occasional bobcat, and bats. Coyotes could be heard howling & yipping while hunting. On nights with a full moon, you could watch their shadows moving along the wash as they commuted to preferred hunting grounds for their nightly meal.

A UV light would show you insects that you didn’t normally see. While I’m sure the insects are still around. The UV light isn’t strong enough to reveal them. Either the UV is being cancelled out by the background light, or the fluorescence that some insects reflect back is too dim to see. During some seasons, a UV light would make the ground around my house look like an 80s disco scene.

All that is gone, driven out by humans from dazzling urbanite cities and their terror of the dark. Also gone is my ability to sleep soundly with the bedroom shade up. I like falling asleep enjoying the changing moonlight, and on moonless nights looking out at the stars.

When I first found this place, in Spring, Summer, and into Early Autumn, the door to the deck and yard would be open while I was awake.

My dogs would routinely trot out to inspect the yard and keep out unwanted visitors. They’d come back in after their rounds, proud of a job well done. They’d lay on the floor near me ears pricked for an unusual sound. When something sounded odd, they’d be out again checking the perimeter, then if all was secure, they’d come back in and lay down. Bedtime was signaled by me brushing my teeth. They’d head out for one last look around then come in and I’d close the door. We’d all head to the bedroom where one or both of them would assume guardian position facing the bedroom door.

Nights were dark and peaceful. I rested well, secure that my boys could see anything in the night that I couldn’t, should someone or something come into the house. They were the best alarm system in the world. Smart, automatic, and selectively defensive. If they recognized you they’d greet you happily. If they didn’t, they’d let you know you were not welcome until I said you were.

I miss the days of never locking my door. I miss the dark nights, stars, and occasional asteroids leaving streaks of fire in the sky. I miss watching the constellations march across the night or dip below the horizon depending on the time of the year.

These are some of the reasons I came to this little town one weekend and decided to stay.

Now that so much of what I loved about being here is gone, I find that I stay out of nothing more than habit. Fearful humans have robbed me of the joys I used to find in everyday life here in the mountains.

It’s time to move on.

One last place to call home where I can see the night sky again.
One last place to appreciate the beauty of nature without car alarms chirping, people shouting, and nature itself hiding from all the cacophony humankind can’t seem to live without.
A place of silent beauty that somehow seems magically eternal.
A place with seasons.
Summer thunderheads rumbling the ground, flashing lightening, marching across the sky.
The sound of rain on the roof and smell of rich ground soaking up the life giving water.
The feel of a brisk Autumn wind blowing leaves across my path.
A cool bite of gentle snow landing on my cheeks in the gray time of deep Winter.
The riotous miracle of Spring as plants wake from their slumber.

There was a time in my life when I had many of these things. I was too young and impatient to really appreciate it. Where I live now, once gave me some of these wonders.

It’s said, “Adapt or die,” I think I choose to do neither.

I choose to find what I lost, and this time to really appreciate it.

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I noticed gas station changes the other day.

Let me preface with this. I hadn’t purchased gas for my car for probably 3 months. I haven’t been driving all that much and as such, the gas in the tank was mostly from late December or early January.

I went to a massage appointment in February but only burned a quarter of a tank in that round trip.

Last week I had another massage appointment and so on the way back, I stopped at a filling station. In this particular case I chose a station at the Morongo Indian Reservation where I paid $5.83 for premium instead of the $6.31 at the stations near home.

I was feeling pretty happy about the savings and went into the attached store for a drink and snack.

Coming out, I noticed there seemed to be a lot of people milling about. This is somewhat unusual since most of the time gas stations stops are a 10 minute affair at most. Gas, snacks, bathroom break, etc and then you’re on the road again.

Then I noticed that there were a lot of cars parked in the parking lot attached to charging stations.

That was my ah ha moment. There were a ton of people waiting for their EVs to recharge. This got me to thinking about the whole “Green” market. All of the charging stations had credit card slots. I’m assuming that you have to pay for those kilowatts just like you have to pay for gas. I doubt seriously that the gas station is going to give electricity away for free.

I stood there for a moment watching the bored people standing around their cars and thought this is trouble kinda waiting to happen. What happens if a single lady or wealthy man is stuck for a while recharging, at night? Does that make them “Fish in a barrel” for the more predatory elements of society? Especially right now. There are few charging facilities between Palm Springs and LA.

Then there’s the time. How many guys have gone out to their car after their spouse has driven it only to find that the tank is empty. The guy grumbles and drives to the nearest gas station and fills the tank then goes to work.

What does it do to your work schedule if your spouse forgot to plug your car in? Especially if your spouse took your car because they’d forgotten to plug theirs in as well. This presumes that both partners can afford to have electric cars.

I got into my gas vehicle and turned it on. The fuel gauge read “Full” and the indicated estimated range was 575 miles. On a cross country trip last year the furthest I pushed it was 550 miles.

I’d been at the filling station for 10 minutes and was ready to leave. I can’t imagine my frustration at sitting for 1/2 hour to an hour waiting for an electric vehicle to recharge. I’m far too impatient and I’d be losing my mind well inside 30 minutes

I should note, that 550 miles was me running the car in “Eco” mode and on a long flat straight highway with cruise control on. So that was kind of special and neat. I was comfortable and the A/C was on as the miles rolled by. I wondered what an electric car would do in similar circumstances. Would I be as confident and carefree on the trip or would I be worried about the next charging stop and how long I’d be stuck there?

More realistically, my car gets 31MPG consistently. That’s mixed mode driving between the “Comfort” setting and the “Eco” setting. I find that “Comfort” works best in stop & go traffic like in town with lights and stop signs while “Eco” really shines on the open road and also in bumper to bumper traffic in a freeway traffic jam.

On the trip I mentioned, there were two days where my car reported 45 MPG. That was a special circumstance because once you cross the mountains into AZ it’s mostly down hill. With “Eco” on and cruise control the car just kept going, only applying a touch of gas to keep up the momentum.

I suppose an electric would derive some recharging potential in similar circumstances. I’d guess that would extend the range so long as you kept the accessories to a minimum.

The trip across country took me 3 days. My car easily takes me 475 miles and I still have plenty of fuel to find a station, usually about 50 miles remain.

I looked up a Tesla long range. 375 Miles on a full. charge, 80% charge in 30 minutes with a rapid charger. The wallbox charger takes 11 hours and 15 minutes to give you a full charge.

This made me wonder how long it would take to drive across country in a Tesla. I guess the best way would be to assume you’re going 375 miles in the first leg and then 300 miles for each subsequent leg with over night stops at hotels that may or may not have charging stations. I’m betting that an electric vehicle would realistically add a day to the trip. That isn’t too bad if you think about it.

But I gotta say, there were some places where I stopped only for gas and jumped right back in the car. The “bathroom break” waited until a proper rest stop where there were lots of people around.

There was one place that made me swear I’d driven into “Deliverance” I didn’t wait around to hear, “You’ve got a purty face…”

As I left the charge lot, I was thankful for a full tank and the choice to gas up and go quickly.

The lease is coming up on my car. I’ve been shopping around and seen prices that make a Tesla look attractive. (Just Kidding) I’m thinking I’m going to hold BMW to the lease buyout. Who’d have thought that a lease buyout on a BMW would be more of a deal than buying a Toyota?

We are living in strange times.

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Have you noticed?

It hit me this morning over my coffee, that I wasn’t being inundated with COVID news. Anthony Fauci hasn’t been doing the chat TV interview circuit.

I guess all we needed was a war, rising gas prices, and the threat of inflation to break the fear mongering of the national media. Or did these things simply cure COVID?

Even CNN’s front web page has only 1 covid related item. Since I haven’t watched CNN in over a year, I’d bet there’s still the crawler at the bottom of the screen giving COVID statistics.

To be sure, COVID is not gone. It’s still out there doing what viruses do. It’s mutating. There are other variants appearing and at this point those variants appears to be following the normal viral lifecycle. Greater infectiousness, lower fatality.

Gee, all it took was the threat of a nuclear war and upcoming midterm elections to stop COVID doom in the United States.

Humans! What a species.

I call this better, because like most people I was sick and tired of the “DOOM ON YOU” messaging of the media about COVID.

“COVID is gonna kill you,” To which I said, “Okay, but when? I wished it would just get on with it.”

Now I find myself thinking along the lines I used to think about during the Cold War.

Several media outlets have spoken about a nuclear exchange and again, I’m like, “Fine. Whatever!”

This is perhaps a fatalistic view but with Nukes, at least it’s likely to be quick. I live within 10 miles of a military base.

I suppose I’ve grown tired of the constant doom. We’re all going to die sometime. I’d prefer to just go about my day without being reminded of it every 10 minutes. Which is why I don’t watch the news, I’ll read about the latest threat to all life of the planet in my own time.

If you’d really like to get your panties in a bunch, Look up gamma ray bursts. Somewhere in the universe a long time ago, a star collapsed or blew up. As its core ceased to exist, the star emitted an intense focused burst of gamma rays. Those gamma rays are at this moment blazing across the universe at the speed of light. We can’t see them because the universe is too big for us to have instruments trained on the entire sky.

A gamma extinction event could come at any time from any direction. It’s only luck that it hasn’t happened yet. But the day is still young! Why don’t we have constant interviews from pundits and wags telling us how to build shelters, or suicide booths?

Here’s why, Gamma rays tend to blast through anything and unless they’re absorbed by immense distance, or something with sufficient mass between their point of origin and us. A Gamma burst could sterilize the entire planet. Everything burns.

There’s a complete sense of powerlessness. It’s too big, too beyond our petty concerns. It’s unthinkable, instead we maintain our beliefs that we are special, and some deity will protect us. We can’t begin to process the enormity of something like this, the unfairness, the annihilation of our “special” species, and so we ignore it.

Our own sun could do us with an intense solar flare at any moment. That, our scientists would see coming and we’d have 30 minutes or so to say goodbye.

The sky changes color, the Aurora Borealis is, for a brief instant visible across the entire planet as the high energy particles interact with the shield created by the magnetic field of our planet. There are pretty colors and the sentient population of the planet stands in amazement. Then the shield is overwhelmed and poof! Everything burns.

The next day, the sun still rises and Earth spins on.

A million years later, some weird bacteria rises up from some protected cavern in the deepest part of what used to be an ocean, or falls to Earth aboard an icy comet and life starts again.

There is nothing we can do about it, just as we couldn’t stop a pandemic. Pandemics happen almost like clockwork. So do extinction events.

Mars, had all the elements for life. Until a huge asteroid smacked the planet. Some scientists think that the impact disrupted that planet’s core enough to cause the magnetic shielding to fail permanently. Then it was just a matter of time, the solar wind carrying off the atmosphere atom by atom, just so much dust in the wind so to speak. Solar radiation increased and well, the results are obvious. A cold, dry, desolate, dead world.

Another couple million years and the remaining atmosphere of Mars will be gone. 5 or 6 billion years later, our sun expands and the inner solar system is recycled. Who knows, a hundred billion years later, maybe all those atoms will coalesce forming a new planetary system. Then again, maybe not. It’s the luck of the draw.

Because in the back of my mind I try to see the whole of creation, (Not just Earth, but the universe,) I guess I have a slightly different view. It’s tough to maintain that view with all the constant noise from daily events. But my view gives me comfort.

It also tends to make me willing to discard things that I cannot control. I prefer instead to focus on what I can speak of, or directly change, or control.

I couldn’t prevent the COVID pandemic, but I could speak facts and try to remind people that it wasn’t a complete death sentence. Measles decimated the native people of Hawaii. Smallpox decimated the native peoples of North America. The Black Plague killed 1/4 of Europe. The 1914 influenza and subsequent waves killed 50 million people.

And the world spun on. Humanity continued. There are no guarantees. Dance in the light while you can, don’t worry about a guaranteed tomorrow. Live now, in this time and place and make the best of it.

We can prevent a nuclear war. We can choose to live in peace with each other. We can choose to be kind. We can choose not to be petty, or hateful, we can step into each new day as a gift, fearless of what may happen and joyful in choosing to live, love, learn, and become our best selves.

I guess, I believe that the echos of us reverberate throughout the universe. The infinitesimally small transmissions of electrical activity in our brains scatter out in all directions across space and time. Perhaps, those transmissions spark inspiration, or recognition of beauty, or a moment of kindness in an unimaginable species 100 billion years from now. Or, a moment of cruelty, destruction, or harm.

My choice is to stumble toward the light, to be better than I was yesterday. I choose to believe that a decent act, a kind act, or my dancing in the sunlight in joy, will at some point stay the hand of a tyrant on a distant world, or cause a child to smile seeing beauty in something commonplace.

That’s my immortality.

Even if that doesn’t actually work across billions of years. It may make a difference here, now.

Oh I’ll still rail against things that bug me. I’m human and our focus is so easily narrowed to things that annoy. I forgive myself for that.

I just have to remember to reach for being a citizen of the Universe instead of just the Earth.

Look up at the night sky, be awed at the majesty and beauty.

Be at peace with yourself and others. Create and experience all the joy you can.

The choice is yours.

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We’re coming up on Spring

Technically the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere is March 20.

That’s the official calendar and Equinox date.

My dog, the trees in the yard, and the flower beds, have a slightly different perspective.

The dog is shedding… A LOT! In the past 2 weeks he’s dropped most of his undercoat.

He’s a husky mix and as near as I can tell he’s got three different layers of fur. The outer coat is longish and seems built to shed snow, water, and ice. The mid coat is pretty dense and looks like it’s built as a wind breaking layer. The under coat is fluffy and reminds me of my down jacket.

That last coat is also prone to static attraction, and flies around the house when I’m running the vacuum. I caught myself chasing little bits of fluff with the vacuum the other day and suddenly understood why the vacuuming chore was taking twice as long as usual.

When he starts shedding the undercoat, he’s also more prone to matting so I’ve been brushing him every other day.

You’d think, “Oh, that’s nice…” You’d be wrong. The dog thinks that brushing is a game. So he plays and spins and tries to keep the brush away.

Admittedly, it’s funny.

What’s not funny is that after the brushing is done. I’m covered head to toe in static charged downey fur and I look a lot like a Yeti. (Brushing is best done outside, prior to a shower, or putting on clean clothes.)

I also try to brush him when there are no breezes. The neighbors probably don’t like clumps of fur the size of small rabbits blowing across their lawns.

Brushing him outside made me notice the large pine trees are greening. There are buds on some of the ground cover plants. As the snow recedes, I’m seeing the work that I’ll have to do in the yard.

I’m seeing greening of the maple in the front yard and sprouts in the flower beds.

If the temps remain warm, I’ve got a plan to fire up the chainsaw and vigorously prune the Apache Plume which has become a little too wild for my tastes. It’s a neat plant but this one has become rather large and threatens to take over the planet.

I need to fence off the vegetable beds. The dog loves digging in the soft soil. That’s great for him, (ahem,) but I want to grow vegetables this year. I don’t want to plant a bunch of vegetables only to have to battle the dog and rabbits. The rabbits are enough of a challenge!

Last year, the vegetable garden wasn’t remotely possible because the dog was new to the household and had no sense of boundaries. I’ve concluded that he still has no sense of boundaries and that a fence will be necessary.

While I’m fencing off the vegetable beds, I’m thinking I’ll fence off the area under the main deck. (Again to keep the dog out of that area. He likes to dig for buried treasure and an unknown number of toys have disappeared into the abyss under that deck.)

The overall plan is to get the spring gardening out of the way, which will make room for my trim and house painting projects.

It’s at these times that I wish I had a pick up truck. I’d like to be able to take cuttings and other stuff to the dump on my schedule instead of stacking it, then borrowing or renting a truck.

There are also a lot of little building projects that I’m thinking about doing.

I’d enjoy doing the projects, but I’m light on tools to accomplish the tasks. I could see myself spending $800 bucks in tools to assemble $150 in projects.

I suppose it really comes down to would I get $800 worth of pleasure and satisfaction out of the work.

Forget the lumber costs! Even decent sawhorses are obscenely expensive these days. Then there’s the issue of being able to store the tools when not in use. The other half also doesn’t much in the way of boundaries in the garage. It’s a royal pain in the butt to climb over all kinds of junk to get to my tools.

I suppose, I can start by cleaning and reorganizing the garage while it’s still too cool to work in the yard. Then I can do the yard work, rent a truck and take all of the crap to the dump. Once that’s done, I can begin the building projects.

It’s a bit like pulling a loose thread on a sweater, one thing leads to another, and another, then before you know it, your sweater is just a pile of yarn.

I’m tired just thinking about it! Oh well, I’ve got a few weeks to think on it.

That compound miter saw looks awfully nice though…

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Why we can’t have nice things…

Four years ago I was leaving a grocery store near my apartment when a complete stranger walked up to me and commented on my watch.

It wasn’t uncommon for my colleagues to notice it or comment on it. It was not even that uncommon for a clerk in a shop to notice my watch, (particularly if they were male,) and say something like, “nice,” while looking at my wrist.

That day in front of the grocery store, this guy who appeared homeless commented about my watch in a very loud voice. He said something like, “That’s a really nice watch, what did that set you back 10 grand 15 grand?” What caught my attention was that he was speaking loudly enough for pretty much the entire shopping plaza to hear him. I’m a suspicious person, and in the back of my brain a thought popped in, “Why is this guy announcing this? Is he calling to an accomplice?”

I politely said in an equally loud voice, “Thank you for the compliment, it’s amazing how many compliments I get on this cheap $200 Hong Kong knock off. Would you like to hold it? “

At that point the man lost interest. Thank god he didn’t call my bluff.

This event was about the 3rd or 4th I’d experienced in 2 weeks. Admittedly, I wasn’t living in the best neighborhood at the time, but up to that point I hadn’t felt particularly unsafe.

The watch in question is not a knock off.

I purchased it 14 years ago for about 7K. I’d lost a rather large watch collection in a fire and decided that I simply wanted a single very nice watch that I never took off. I’d worn my watch continuously since I put it on in the store.

There were some who scolded me for wearing such a nice watch while doing yard work, working on a car, building, painting, swimming, or just living. I really thought nothing of it.

It is my watch, and since it was the only one I owned, it was easier to keep it on my wrist than to keep track of it, if I took it off.

The watch itself has held up very well. I sent it in for routine service on its tenth birthday. The service center gave it a tune up, and a clean bill of health. complemented me on two things. 1) it was in excellent shape and 2) that they’d guessed I wore it every day and thought that was very cool.

They didn’t even charge me for the replacement of 2 links in the band that had taken the brunt of a saw kickback. The watch band had saved me from a very nasty cut on my wrist. As part of the service the watch was also appraised. I was a bit shocked, and pleased, to discover that my watch had more than doubled in value.

After the repeated incidents in public where the watch garnered unwanted and intrusive attention, (it’s still considered rude to ask a stranger what they paid for something isn’t it?) I decided it was time to put my beautiful functional timepiece in a safe and buy something cheap and ubiquitous.

I’ve enjoyed the lockdowns over the past two years because if I’m around home, or in my little mountain town I’ve been able to wear my nice watch. I also wore it with complete confidence on a recent trip to Florida. Some men in Florida noticed my watch, they just nodded in appreciation, and smiled. You know… “Old School Politeness.”

My cheap watch is an Apple watch. It’s nice, but having to recharge it daily is a pain in the butt. The advantage is that everyone has one and in that homogeneity is safety.

No-one is likely to mug me for an Apple Watch.

The sadness is that my beautiful, simple, functional, watch sits in the safe. I do wear it if I’m camping, diving, or know that I’m not likely to encounter crowds of people. I also wear it more in the Winter when a jacket or long sleeves afford cover for it.

Within the past month or two, I read a news item where a man in Los Angeles had been robbed of his Rolex, at gunpoint after an induced car accident.

Today There was a report from England in The Sunday Times talking about an apparently organized group of thieves who are targeting high end watch wearers. The article is here and it’s brazen.

Most of the men report being approached by lovely women asking for their signature on a petition or something. In some cases the women become handsy and quite forward, talking non stop. In a few cases they’ve offered sex or other enticements.

Often the men are so flabbergasted they don’t realize their watch is gone until the woman has left.

I’ve heard of expensive hookers, but these guys aren’t even getting blow jobs for their 10 to 20K!

The article mentions that the thieves seem to be targeting Rolexes.

The supply of Rolexes is thin and the resale market is booming.

Rolex among other high end watches retain their value worldwide. They’re easy to transport, and with a hot resale market the thief can dump the merchandise quickly.

I’ve been jonesing for a watch that I can safely wear daily that doesn’t require recharging or batteries.

I guess you could say I’m bored with the Apple Watch and its attendant software updates, power requirements, and fiddling.

I think fondly of my nice watch. Ten years, one watch, and zero trouble. Ahh, simplicity!

I’d been looking at a nice simple Omega. But that too is a high end watch and subject to the same targeting by thieves. That being said, I may get one anyway.

I suppose that a venerable Timex might be the best way to go.

It does make me wonder how long will it be before we’re all driving the same car, all wearing the same clothes, all wearing the same watch, and all using the same mobile phone?

Is that where this is going, will we all be stuck with a “one size fits all” solution just to fight crime?

That’s not freedom. That’s the old Soviet Union, North Korea, or China. I want the freedom to have nice things without worrying about becoming a target.

I’m also just old school enough to want a concealed carry permit and a stout .45 on my hip. I’d rather leave the thieves gut shot and bleeding out on the sidewalk. (Why gut shot? Because it’s an agonizing death.) People don’t usually think of me, and mercy at the same time.

I find myself thinking that all it would take is 1 year of would be criminals stacking up in the morgues, and crime would be almost nonexistent. I figure we’d either run out of criminals, or criminals would decide crime itself was too risky.

Unfortunately, especially in California, criminals have been given the upper hand and they’re continuing to press their advantage. Apparently this is also true elsewhere in the world.

Maybe I’ll go with a Timex until I’m able to move to a state where they’ve remembered, “An armed society is a polite society.”

Maybe sometime in the near future folks will wake the hell up and realize The “Wild West” era came to a close in part because we all agreed that a robust police force was preferable to daily shoot-outs at the saloon.

That’s provided that the morons running things haven’t burned the history books or forgotten how to read them.