Category: General

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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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Well California really has it all!

In addition to fires, earthquakes, blizzards, mudslides, Santa Ana winds, the occasional tornado, and floods.

California can boast a hurricane warning, fleeting as it was. The hurricane warning has devolved into a tropical storm warning and will likely lead to mudslides and flooding.

I’m not sure how fires would stand up to this amount of rain but we could still get a few tornadoes out of this too.

My family in Florida is laughing their butts off. They were snickering about how the news was portraying this Hurricane. They saw it was a Category 4 and thought perhaps there was some danger so they called or texted to ask.

I pointed out that this was not the first hurricane I’d seen, it’s not even the first I’ve seen in California.

Most of the hurricanes roll up the Gulf of California, or they come from the Pacific, cross the Baja peninsula and die in Mexico’s desert region. Their remnants then make their way north into AZ, NM, or TX.

The rare hurricane that reaches the top of the Gulf of California degrades rapidly from hurricane, to tropical storm, to just a lot of rain as it makes its way across the desert and dumps a lot of moisture across southern California. Sometimes the rain gets to NV, AZ and UT.

In other words, it’s no big deal.

This Storm formerly known as Hurricane Hillary. Is unusual because it didn’t roll into the gulf of California. Instead it’s heading up the Pacific side of Baja.

It doesn’t matter too much though. The Pacific starts cooling down pretty rapidly as you go North.

Hurricanes typically like warm water and get their energy from it. That’s why most of the hurricanes on the East coast tend to form near the equator and then swing north through the Caribbean. Warm shallow seas provide a lot of energy. Or so I’ve been told by friends who know a lot more about weather than I do.

With all this information in my head and looking to the South, there is an 8000 Ft. Mountain between me and the storm. I figured Hillary would fall apart into a tropical storm by the time it got to San Diego and we’d just get a lot of rain.

As of this morning that appears to be holding true. I’ll have to wait and see this evening if the predicted wind will kick up. The rain might also present a bit of a problem but honestly I think I’m in pretty good shape.

The wash is thus far handling the water.

It’s just wait and see.

There’s supposed to be more rain tomorrow. Then Sunshine for the rest of the week.

Seems like today is a good day to watch a movie or read a good book.

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Grooming day!

Oh boy!

Today I get to load up the dog for a trip to the groomer. He’ll be happy I’ll just be tired! The groomer in question likes Jesse and he seems to like her. His grooming appointments are more expensive than mine, and that’s saying something!

Well… if I have a massage As part of my monthly grooming I still have him beat.

I’m not going to know what to do with myself while he’s getting bathed, trimmed, fluffed and made ready for his close up.

Due to distances, this is going to take a huge chunk of the day. 1 hour or so just in transport to and from the appointment. He’ll be indisposed for about 3 hours.

It’s okay, I haven’t been taking him on a monthly basis. Mainly because the cost is prohibitive. I miss being able to take him to local folks who knew him. But the local folks have retired or moved elsewhere and the remaining “Locals” can’t keep an appointment.

The last local person I tried canceled 3 appointments in a row. Jesse and I never met her and I decided that she obviously didn’t want the business. She also was about as expensive as what I’m doing now, going to one of the big box groomers.

Previously, other locals, provided great services at reduced prices because they liked having regular business. We tended to book monthly appointments regular as clockwork. 60.00 for two well behaved dogs versus 80.00 for one.

Candy was the best. She let my retrievers run around, out of the holding cages (on nice days out in her yard,) until after their baths. Then they’d be in the cages for blow drying and out again. Those two retrievers were protective of each other and Candy figured out that working on them was easier if they could hold each other’s paws. They also liked her and she them. My boys knew how to wrap a person around their little fingers.

Jesse is excellent at wrapping people around his fingers, he’s not so good at doing what you’ve asked him to do. He’s getting better about it, every so slowly.

Well it’s time for me to get cleaned up and get this show on the road. I think a nap this afternoon will be in order.

On the plus side, this will mark the second day in a row that I’ve left the neighborhood. That’s a good thing because I’ve gotten to the point that leaving the house is an ordeal. I just hate dealing with people in general.

I like select individuals but the majority of folks… I can’t stand. I didn’t used to have this problem this bad, but isolation during COVID and isolation over the past 7 months has made me really antisocial.

Little excursions seem to help as long as I can avoid asshole drivers. I ran into a gentleman at Costco yesterday that said he’d noticed an increasing rudeness and even had people hit him with their carts as if he wasn’t there, or wasn’t human, or wasn’t worthy of courtesy.

We entered into this conversation right after a lady had run into me for a second time in the same aisle and… well I sort of let her have it.

There are reasons people like me don’t like people in general.

A lot of people have ZERO standards of behavior in public. I can’t educate everyone but I sure as hell don’t have to put up with them.

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You know…

Sometimes my mind runs in strange directions.

I was thinking about Biden’s reactions to the Maui fire and wondering why our government doesn’t redirect some of the Billions of dollars that we’re sending to Ukraine, to Maui to patch up their hurt.

Biden’s “NO COMMENT” response kinda pissed me off.

Then I thought about the Biden Family involvement with both Ukraine and Russia. I started wondering.

Is the Russia Ukraine war nothing but a big SCAM?

I know people have been killed, & there’s been a lot of damage. That doesn’t mean that Putin and Zelenskyy didn’t sit down at a Swiss Ski resort and say, “Now that Biden is The US President, and we know he’s an idiot, we know his vice President is a moron, and that they have surrounded themselves with sycophants. Perhaps we could go to ‘war’ and the idiot Americans would send us lots of money in aid. We could make a lot of the money ‘disappear’ and grow very very rich.”

Putin and Zelenskyy have demonstrated time and again that they are brutal dictators who no doubt would consider all the deaths “Acceptable Losses”. Especially if you’re talking billions of dollars, even after kicking back 10% to the Biden Family.

We know that a lot of the cash has vanished. The equipment could easily be sold on the black market for decent money.

I don’t know if that’s what’s going on, but I could sure see it happening.

Ukraine gets some renovation, the Russian army gets live fire exercises, Putin & Zelenskyy get filthy RICH and perhaps retire to Malta.

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Plans Change…

The plan was for me to get up, have a cup of coffee, get a shower, and go grocery shopping. The plan was to head to Ralphs, and Costco to do a little comparison shopping. Both are double the distance from home than the Stater Bros.

Recently, I’ve become very dissatisfied with the local Stater Bros. Both in selection / availability of products and the fact that lately touching the Coolers or Freezers anywhere in the store I get shocked. Yeah Electrical shock. It tends to make the shopping experience not so nice. I’m also tired of the crowd at that store.

I discovered that the Ralphs and the Costco are on the same street down the hill, and may even be at opposite ends of a long shopping plaza. That could be super convenient as long as the prices are comparable or better than the local market.

There is a possibility of rain late in the afternoon so the plan was a good one since the pup was going to be outside and I didn’t want him to be out in the rain.

My plans began to change when I came out of the shower and the pup was sound asleep in front of the fireplace instead of his usual spot out on the deck. He also was disinterested in my bagel. He didn’t want his usual cookie, or to play with the ball. He did take his greenie out to the deck then ate it in a very leisurely way.

As I type this, he’s ignored a bunch of barking outside preferring instead to be “husky curled” in the chair.

I’m glad I didn’t go. I was feeling punky yesterday I think today is the pups day.

I’ve got food here in the house, this was just a routine replenishment. Mostly it was an exploratory trip.

If the pup isn’t feeling well, I worry. He may not be my actual ‘child’ but I feel very paternal towards him.