Category: General

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Thank goodness!

Okay, things are finally starting to bend to my will!

I know that sounds terrible! Maybe not terrible, just arrogant as hell!

The second car is in good shape, the overheating issue had been addressed.

I cleaned out one of the two dead trucks today and I’m sitting my ass on the couch! I got hotter than hell sorting through all the crap the other half left in his truck. It’s cool outside, but damn! Inside the truck it was hot and with no battery power I couldn’t drop the windows since they’re power.

I’m hoping my truck is in better shape. Although since the other half was driving it until he blew the engine, I have no idea how much crap he left inside.

I found all kinds of interesting things inside his truck. Hymnals for example, that I distinctly remember him being upset about misplacing. I found it amusing, I was laughing as I pulled stuff out. I used to tease him that he had too many places to lose things. I’d get a glower and go hide in the office.

Now I can schedule the dog for his grooming appointment, I can pay the registration on the other halfs car, (Needed a SMOG Certification). This clears the way for me to be able to load and transport the boxes and boxes of music to where they can be sorted. I’m working toward getting rid of the dead trucks and feel like I’m moving forward.

Tomorrow the backflow inspection is happening it’s only 3 weeks late! Another one of those things that you can’t just call and schedule. The folks who do this service, want to schedule a lot of stops at once. I get it, It’s not cost effective to send someone 30 minutes up the hill and then 30 minutes down the hill for one 15 minute appointment. So folks that do this kind of thing want a cluster of inspections in town because it makes the trip worthwhile. Especially now with gas prices what they are, and considering that a lot of these inspection guys are plumbers and therefore driving a truck with a lot an equipment. Coming up the hill costs a bunch of gas.

I’ll be sad to see our old trucks go, yeah they’re non-functional but they’re from a time when we were both younger and healthier. They need to go, they’ve needed to go for years. But there’s a nostalgia associated with them.

As with many of these kinds of things, it feels like I’m letting go of “US”. This is normal. In fact I am letting go of stuff that didn’t add to our relationship or life and now it adds even less.

I’ve sort of concluded that donating the music folios will be a good thing insofar as buying me back a lot of space. If this music was sorted, I might consider putting it up for sale. Some of the items are kind of rare. I’m not qualified to curate it all. The other problem is I don’t even know what he had.

To be honest I’m not sure that he knew what he had. I’ve found a few duplications of music here in the house, he had two storage areas, neither were anything other than “stacks”, it’s no wonder he lost track of what he had versus what he thought had been lost in the fire.

The music and Truck should be taken care of this month. That leaves the stacks of junk stored in the basement. Toss it? Or should I set it up for the Labor Day garage sales???

I’m still thinking about what to do…

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Sometimes you just have to say Screw IT!

I’ve been trying for 3 days to get a tow truck to get one vehicle to a service facility.
It’s less than 10 miles.

But because…

What? Why is it always so difficult to get almost anything done here? It’s not that there aren’t folks to do stuff, it’s that they’ve always got attitude about it as if they’re the only ones available, and truthfully sometimes they are.

When you try to locate someone else it’s like pulling teeth, there’s tons of scheduling difficulties and lots of hemming and hawing.

So this morning, after spending Monday and half of Tuesday and the first couple hours this morning trying to locate another towing company. I said screw it! I fired up the car that has been overheating, and in the cool overcast I allowed gravity to assist me down the mountain while keeping cool airflow over the engine. I made it to the repair facility before the temp reached 212° F.

The difference between being someone who can drive versus someone who Drives I guess. This is probably why I got almost 100,000 miles out of the brakes on my 1 Series.
If you can gauge the weight and how your car slows down when you take your foot off the gas, with engine braking you don’t really need brakes until you need to stop at a light, stop sign, or because someone else in front of you is slamming on their brakes every 8 seconds.

So I’m at the repair facility and I was thinking about the general difficulties of living where I do.

Things were never as easy as when I lived in dense urban areas. But over the past decade things have gotten a lot harder.

It’s simple things, like mandated inspections. Getting tow trucks, finding someone to do a septic tank replacement, or paint the whole house. Repairs around the house for which I may not have the tools, the skill, or both, are also a pain.

Theres a lot of good about being here.

I love my view, I’m becoming less fond of winters. Even so, the sound of snow, the beauty of full moon on untouched snowdrifts, the rainbow sprinkles you sometime see on fresh snow in the sun, these are things that I will miss if I leave this place. Typically the Summer isn’t too hot or uncomfortable and as in winter, I appreciate the sounds of nature, the beauty of a sunrise or sunset, the rare rain and rarer thunderstorm. I like hiking around the area and having pretty safe places to walk the dog. I enjoy watching the hummingbirds and their battles around the feeder. Their aerobatics always put a smile on my face.

There’s a lot of bad about being here.

One or two neighbors up the road who make things super miserable for everyone else. Slow police response time, The difficulties I mentioned before about getting things done. The exceedingly long commutes to get to basic services. The general cost of everything here in California. There’s no sign of that changing any time soon. I suspect that it’s going to get worse before the state figures out the people they’re increasing the taxation on are the same people they’re forced to pay subsidies to because otherwise those folks are below the state poverty line, but not the federal level.

It’s with a lot of this stuff in mind that I’ve started a pro and con list of remaining here.
It’s questionable if I can stay here without finding a job. There are a lot of memories here. Most of them are happy, but some of them are very sad. Finding people to interact in positive ways is difficult. Dating, should I choose to do that, will be almost impossible. Commuting to a job will be more difficult. Traffic has gotten so bad that even a short commute is not as easy as it once was. Sadly the bad list is outweighing the good.

I’ll keep working on it. It’s been suggested that I pack the dog up and take a road trip to some of the places I’ve been considering as alternatives to California. I think it’s a good idea…

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Hey Tucker Twitter isn’t working!

Well it’s probably working for a lot of folks, but since I don’t have a Twitter account and am really ambivalent about creating a new one I’m not able to see Tucker Carlson.

I had a Twitter account, which i got rid of a number of years ago.

In my case I was tired of speaking my mind and then either being shouted down or censored. This was especially true when what I said was 100% correct with verifiable sources.

After becoming disgusted with Twitter, killing the account, and not looking back I don’t really want to sign up again. Then there’s the fun little thing that Twitter is perhaps limiting how much I can read per day? (Is that true?) and now they’re not letting me look at any tweets behind the “Create an Account” page.

I was tuning in a couple of days a week to see what Mr Musk was proposing about the future of Twitter. I was actually thinking about rejoining the service. But now… Nah, I’m not going to jump blindly into a service that drove me away.

I was tuning into Tucker Carlson on Twitter. That was another perk for me to rejoin the service. I hadn’t quite decided when the Twitter folks locked things down.

Now I can’t see him at all and interestingly his Twitter show isn’t being rebroadcast as widely as it was.

You can go to Tucker’s web site and maybe view episodes. Although I’ve not had that work either. It looks like the link it trying to take the user to Twitter or X (whatever,) but the linkage fails without an error and never plays either.

So while I’m sure the number of people like myself who don’t really want to play Twitter’s game is vanishingly small, There are a number of us for whom Tucker is effectively OFF THE AIR.

Which is just exactly what the folks who fired Mr. Carlson from Fox wanted.

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Gentle Rain…

Last night soft rain began falling just as I was heading to bed. I love the sound of gentle rainfall and often use the sound of rain on the HomePods in the bedroom to fall asleep.

Last night the fake track wasn’t necessary, Mother Nature provided a natural soundtrack all night long.

Although about 1 or 2 am, the natural soundtrack was interrupted by a bunch of noise from jackass central where Crazy Pants and the other transient trash live.

I suppose that as much of a pain in the ass as it is. I’m going to have to start making noise complaints.

My hesitation about that is if I’m not going to be living here for much longer do I really care? Another consideration is if I start a “war” with those idiots, it could impact my ability to sell my house because if their behavior gets worse, it could scare off potential buyers. Fortunately the eye sore that it their property is mostly concealed by trees and other structures that don’t look like cover photos for “Homeless Beautiful, Your definitive guide to shitty living”

I love that the police are always so concerned about Crazy Pant’s rights, but when asked what about the other neighbors rights they shake their heads. Technically it’s not fair to place the police in that metaphorical vise. It’s not their job to decide. Since Crazy Pants and everyone else in the neighborhood have equal rights, it’s for a judge to determine where the line is.

Eventually the noise died down at Crazy Pants place. I can only hope that they drugged themselves into a stupor or death. I know there’s no such luck on the latter so I’ll take comfort in the former. Once their annoyance quieted, the rain was back. The sound seemed a little louder, as if the intensity of the storm increased.

Perhaps Nature was just trying to drown out the shenanigans so the neighborhood could sleep soundly.

On thing of note about the noise was that the dog didn’t budge from his spot on the bed. When the noise started, he looked up, groaned, and went back to sleep. That’s a comment on the frequency of the disruptions coming from Crazy Pants place. Even the dog is disinterested. He’s a classy dog & they’re trashy primates.

It’s cool and overcast this morning. There’s a slight chance of more rain but I doubt it will happen. I’m thankful for the break in temperature and the quiet of the morning.

I won’t have to water the trees and there may have been enough rain to rinse the dust off the solar panels. That’s one of the things the brochures don’t tell you. Those panels on the roof have to be rinsed from time to time, dust and pollen have a measurable effect on the panel efficiency.

I’m sure there are additional chores that I need to do around here. With watering and rinsing off the list, I think I’ll have another cup of coffee and enjoy the morning a while longer.

Besides, the weather station here in the living room says we could have some thunderstorms. I’d like that, but I’d also be content with more gentle rain.

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I don’t know what to make of this…

This is a maple tree in my neighbors yard that is often pretty accurate in predicting the seasons. This one leaf is autumn but the rest of the tree is still summer green.

I suppose it could be a misfire, or perhaps Winter will be early and long this year. Great! NOT what I want to deal with. After last winter I could do without snow for a while.

I’d hoped to be well into securing a new place to live by now. Trouble is Keyboards are a royal pain in the ass to dispose of. The harps are at least at a consignment store, but I haven’t found a consignment store to put the keyboards in. It’s not just the instruments it’s all the music all the paper work etc. I’m only one man and honestly, I’m having a tough time remaining motivated. I hate cleaning up someone else’s mess. I’m shitty at cleaning up my own messes! LOL!

As an aside, a couple of the harps have been sold already which is super nice. From the sound of it, the harps have gone to people who will play them and love them that’s a good thing, not that the other half likely cares.

That’s a funny thing. When I first lost the other half, I was adamant about the instruments going to people who would play them and love them. Now I’m not quite so driven about that.

It’s moved to the “Nice to Have” column and out of the “Necessary” column.

My view is evolving, I think that’s because the wound isn’t so fresh. Now, I’m recognizing that he’s beyond caring and perhaps I shouldn’t or don’t need to care so much either. Is this me being a bad person? Or me breaking faith?

I don’t think so, I think I’ve moving toward my hallmark pragmatism that my other half always liked.

He also knew that underneath my hard outer shell, I’m a sentimental softy. So either way, if he’s interested in Earthly affairs anymore he’ll be tuning in and laughing at me. On the one hand I’m my pragmatic self, on the other hand I’m all sentimental. He knew being caught between the two really pisses me off!

When the house burned, he was astounded at quickly I disconnected from the possessions and wrote everything off. I wasn’t un-caring but I didn’t’ want to spend time fiddling with things that would never be “Right” again. I was in “Toss It & Move On” mode.

I need to move into that Mode again.

I may also have to accept that I’m not going to be out of this place this year.