Category: Idiots

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Contrary to what you might think…

This is not a picture of an unhappy dog. This is a picture of a dog who’s been outside in 15 inches of snow and is looking for something else to get into.

I’ve never had a dog that loved the snow like Jesse. All my previous dogs enjoyed the snow, but after 1/2 hour or so they were ready to come in, get a treat, get warm and snooze.

That is not the case with Jesse. He comes alive in the snow, it’s all a game and he’s more than content to be outside for hours on end. He digs, rolls, has zoomies, plays with toys, and then curls up watching the world from one of his favorite spots on the decks or near the front gate.

Today is a little different in that he’s not wanting to come in. The last couple of snowfalls haven’t been that impressive. Just a couple of inches and while he’s enjoyed himself he’s been just as happy inside as out. Today on the other hand it’s 29°F and the snow is deep. He’s preferred to be outside running around and when I’ve offered to let him in, he’s just looked at me and run some more.

That’s a good thing because he’s not getting his usual 3 miles of walking today. He’s built for the snow, and plows through it like it’s nothing. I on the other hand, don’t do well in deep snow.

This photo is of the snow we woke up to this morning. 15 inches. We’d already cleared 3 to 5 inches off the decks and the driveway on Saturday. So out in the yard where he’s playing there’s probably at least 18 inches of snow, and the trail that he and I walk every day is going to have at least that much.

I don’t do very well in snow that’s above my knees.

You can see how deep it is in this picture, after clearing the drive and part of the street.

The weather report says that we’re to expect heavy snow and perhaps even thunder and high winds into Monday.

This blog will post automatically early on Monday. I’m writing it on Sunday Morning.

This morning we had power glitches and I’ve had to shut down some of the devices on my local network. With the predicted high winds and snow I’m writing ahead in case the power goes off on Sunday night.

I must admit that the snow is pretty. I wish I wasn’t the one out there clearing it and that the roads were clear. On the other hand, We haven’t had any snow players today so it’s been a quiet Sunday for a change. Saturday morning, I looked out in my front yard and there were complete strangers tromping across my front lawn to pose for pictures and movies on my wooden bench. I ran them off. It is just unbelievable what people think is okay just because there’s snow on the ground.

Coming back from a walk with Jesse, a guy asked me if I had a lighter. He was parked in the yard of a house for sale and wanted to build a fire… On the lawn! I pointed out that he and his party were on private property, that I didn’t have a lighter, and generally speaking folk in these mountains take a very dim view of open fires.

His response, “Yeah I know it’s private property but we weren’t doing anything.”

Then why do you need a lighter???

One of my neighbors came around the corner on an ATV. He’d been using a blade on the front to clear the street . He stopped and told me that he’d had a lot of success for the first time he’d tried the blade.

We chatted a bit and I pointed out that it was great that our street was clear but that we might regret it because of the jackass snowplayers having access to our yards and driveways.

It was at this point Mr. “Have you got a lighter?” decided to pack up and leave.

It could have been that my neighbor and I was chatting about jackass snowplayers, or it could have been that my neighbor has a very nice confederate flag on the front of his ATV.

Perhaps Mr. “Have you got a lighter?” decided that our neighborhood wasn’t to his liking.

Don’t know, don’t care!

Then there were the morons that decided to have their wedding in the snow just off HWY2, (The main road into town,) they thought nothing of blocking the road with their wedding guests and cars. 3500 People in the town were going nowhere, including EMTs!

Apparently, that didn’t even occur to the thoughtless bride and groom. After all… It’s was their day. I couldn’t help but wonder if a snow wedding was the brides way of telling the groom what their marriage was going to be like. You know… Cold as Ice!

In all though, the day was pretty snowplayer free. Turns out, the reason was that there was a 7 car pileup on Highway 138. I guess that put the kibosh on all the other dingbats getting up to the mountains on Saturday.

Sunday has thus far been pretty clear too. Chain requirements and CHP inspection points will do that…

We’ll see what Monday brings.

If there’s power, I’ll update with Monday’s events.

01/27/2021

I missed the update I promised. Between snow clearing and trying to entertain the dog it’s been a busy couple of days.

Monday was a grey and cloudy day. It was bitterly cold, windy and the main focus was just trying to get the driveway, decks, and walkways clear.

Tuesday was bright and sunny it was still 29° F but bearable as long as you stayed in the sun. So later in the afternoon I took the dog for a walk.

As you can see he was very happy to be out of the yard and having a more routine day.

I should note that he’s prancing on a ridge of rocks. In reality the snow on either side of the ridge he is walking on is quite deep. Above my knees in many cases and were it not for the sledding path made by some of the local children It would have been a miserable slog for me. As it was I got a heck of a workout. Jesse did too and I think part of his happiness is that he remembered the rocks under the snow and wasn’t buried up to his shoulders in fluffy dry powder.

This is not to say that he wasn’t snow diving on a fairly regular basis. There were a couple of snowbanks where he jumped as if he was planning to land on top and then look like king of the hill. Things didn’t go as he planned. Instead of landing on top of a solid bank of snow, he disappeared completely.

I was standing there with a leash disappearing into a snowbank making it look like I was walking a snowbank instead of a dog. After a few seconds, Jesse would explode out of the top of the snowbank, so now it looked like a small volcano. Then he’d do this goofy bunny hop to get clear of the snowbank, once clear he’d come running over to me with that laughing look he gets.

It wasn’t until we got to the bottom of the hill that he started to act tired. He’s strong but even for him pushing through deep snow is a lot of work. We walked back up the hill at a slow but even pace and Jesse was pretty much right by my side. He’d occasionally bury his head in the snow trying to catch some illusive smell.

When we got back to the house, Jesse attained his “King of the Hill” Status in our front yard.

The snow pile in the yard is about 8 feet tall but is made up of fairly hard compressed snow because it was piled there by the snow blower.

Tonight, Wednesday we’re expecting more snow going into Thursday and Friday. At this point none of us on the street are sure where we will pile the additional snowfall.

8 feet is about as tall as the snowblowers can pitch the stuff. I suspect that after the next waves of snow, I’m going to have to use a shovel to redistribute the existing pile more evenly over the yard.

That should allow us to clear the driveway and our section of the street again. Then it’s fingers crossed that the next 10 days provide us with warmer temps and sunshine to clear the ice patches.

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Enough Already!

That’s it! Let’s take all social media platforms down! Yeah I said it!

All podcasts, Twitter, FaceBook, Gab, and all the rest!

I’m sick of seeing yet another self righteous pundit, news organization, or whoever the hell else, BITCHING about people espousing views that they don’t agree with. We’re supposed to be a free country, we’re supposed to have freedom of speech, we’re supposed to respect people whose views are different from our own. RIGHT?

Apparently NOT!

The latest two examples of violation of free speech is this article in Breitbart. Followed by this little gem from The Washington Post.

The Breitbart piece talks about the AP, yeah, you read that right… The Associated Press making the case that Podcasts should be de-platformed due to “incitement” on these podcasts.

The Washington Post article describes Apple being sued in federal court to force Apple to de-platform Telegram. Telegram, don’t ya know is where all the Parler users went after finding out that Parler was going to be screwed over by Amazon Web Services.

Here’s a idea. Shut it all down. Our phone batteries would last longer.

That would have the benefit of keeping all the village idiots in their own villages. If you stop them from talking to each other, you’ll prevent them from gathering steam. You might also have a side benefit that if they never meet, we don’t have to worry about an every increasing number of idiots that we’ll have to put up with and take care of.

Then we have this brilliant Senior News analyst from CNN (Communist News Network) who’s trying to float a balloon about censoring OAN & Newsmax.

Both of which appear to be conservative oriented news broadcasters. I’ve not watched either of them, because by the time I learned about them, I was too disgusted by the way the country was heading after the 2020 election to give a rancid fuck.

This is so similar to the way that the NAZI party came to power I can’t stand it. If they actually taught history in schools today and didn’t sanitize the brutality of various regimes people would know this.

First control the narrative, then control the media, then censor anyone with differing beliefs, cast everyone who doesn’t agree with you as anti-(insert the noun de jour) BLM, ANTIFA, Left, Progressive, Equality, Woman, blah, blah, blah. Then take over the country. Next build the camps, then try the re-education, and finally kill EVERYONE!

But… humanity appears doomed to repeat the horrors of the past.

A couple thousand years from now, in a barren wasteland some guy will find a TESLA buried in the sand. People will oooh and ahhh and decide it’s from Aliens. One curious person in the group will recognize that it was made by humans, be curious about how we fell so far, and the whole process of a civilization crawling out of the muck will start over.

Maybe they’ll get it right the next time.

The fall of America to communism or socialism won’t destroy all civilization. But the pervasive backwards thinking cult of leftism in the world just might.

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Election Day has come and gone…

Well, not actually gone. 

It’s devolved into what appears to be blatant cheating along with the usual allegations of voter fraud.

Due to the mail in voting, it’s going to be weeks until we have a winner declared and even then, the legal wrangling will likely last for months if not years.

So ultimately, even if the Democrats lose… they’ve still won because they’ve managed to cast a pall of illegitimacy over the President. 

Likewise though, if the Democrats win, they’ve cast the same pall over their candidate. This is the lesson of mutually assured destruction.  Apparently, the Democrats didn’t learn the lesson during the cold war. 

The new Democrats and their ultra progressive allies obviously never learned the lesson and quite frankly are behaving more like Communists, Bolsheviks, or flat out NAZIs than I’ve ever witnessed. 

Frankly, I’m so disgusted I can’t think straight. 

I fear for my county, and I fear for our future. Not because of one President, but because of the cultural shift that’s occurring and this (In my opinion) wrong headed thinking of win at any cost.

Historically the win at any cost philosophy has proven itself to extract a very high price.

Even now, people are questioning law, order, government, and anything official. 

Folks are also demonstrating a surprising willingness to tear down and destroy anyone or anything that they disagree with.

This path is littered with war, poverty, crime, and genocide. 

It doesn’t matter if you’re killing people over religion, color, or politics, people still die and xenophobia in various forms kills more than people. xenophobia kills progress and enlightenment, and gaining of knowledge. Ask Galileo about that.

xenophobia: [noun] fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign.

By that definition, anything strange or foreign could loosely be politics, religion, belief,  or custom.

Is this where we’re headed? Are we careening down a path to wanton destruction on both sides?

I find myself asking if I want to deal with this. I’m old, and tired, all I wanted was to quietly retire, go fishing, or hang out with folks my age, in peace.

If I don’t want to deal with this – insanity, what are the alternatives? 

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Sadly Portland you’re dead to me

Much like Seattle and San Francisco.

Portland at least grew it’s own roses for the funeral.

It’s really simple. As beautiful as these cities are from the air, and they are beautiful, I have ZERO desire to visit them. Why the hell would I knowingly walk into cities where I’m not only a target, but where I can’t be responsible for my own protection and the police have been gutted?

Why would I want to visit one of these cities now? Places where the wrong word or the slightest of incorrect reactions could get you beaten by a mob?

Doesn’t do much for your tourism does it?

57 Days and nights of rioting? Really?

You people are out of your damn minds. And even if the rioting stops (and it will), the people responsible for all this civil unrest will still be there, just below the surface, waiting for another excuse, or opportunity to mete out their particular brand so-called justice.

Seattle, and San Francisco are no better. Los Angeles is heading the same direction. Los Angeles is slightly different because it’s always been a dangerous place. You know what you’re getting into there, and you never travel in certain districts alone or at night.

I remember a scene from Logan’s Run. The hero and pretty girl are heading to a part of the city overrun with rabid children. There’s a voice from their conveyance repeating, “Warning, You are now entering a personal hazard zone,”

That’s how I feel every time I go into Los Angeles. A similar message should be playing on every flight landing in cities in the Pacific Northwest.

I don’t know anymore what these people are rioting about. I don’t know the cause of their lawlessness and further… I don’t give a shit. They can burn their homes and cities to the ground, then start slaughtering each other, over scraps of bread or some imagined insult or lack of respect. I don’t care.

If the feds march in and just start shooting the rioters, I won’t shed a single tear. Nor will I be shocked. In fact I might make popcorn and watch the show.

This is what happens when stupidity, lawlessness, and anarchy are allowed to go on for too long. It loses its impact, and the original message is long since forgotten.

All I see now is people who look and behave like they’re straight out of Fallujah. In my eyes they are no longer human, or worth saving. They’ve become rabid animals and the only way to deal with that, is to put the animals out of their misery.

I would enjoy seeing the Mayors, Governors, and so called city leaders literally ripped apart by the very rioters they’ve been making endless excuses for. They’d serve as an object lesson to other weak willed political leaders.

I know I sound harsh.

I worry for my friends in Portland because the bullshit is happening right there outside their apartments. I’ve told them it isn’t going to get any better until someone steps up and says “NO MORE”.

My friends respond with, “It’s better today… The ‘protesters’ only burned one dumpster and broke only a few windows.”

That blows my mind. My friends are starting to exhibit Stockholm Syndrome. They’re grading the quality of their days not by there being no violence, but by the level of violence that has become constant.

That’s like saying it was a good weekend in Chicago. There were only 35 shootings instead of 37. What!? That there were any shootings in Chicago is a concern, more so since shootings are so commonplace that no-one takes much notice. That speaks to a much more serious problem.

A rather large problem that no-one is talking about.

What about the rights of the people who live at ground zero? Don’t they have the right to live in a safe and secure place? Why do “Protesters” and I use that term loosely get a pass to make everyone suffer? How insane is it that normal average people are fearful leaving their homes?

It’s way past time for LAW AND ORDER to be reinstated. If that means bodies of protesters in the streets, so be it. At this point while the media would loose its shit, I bet that the majority of America would stand up and cheer.

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I will try not to Road Rage…

IMG_1107.jpegThat’s been my mantra for the last few years.

In Southern California that’s not an easy mantra to keep.

I’ll admit there are times when I do something on the road that’s just plain DUMB!

But those events are rare and that’s mostly due to having a plan about where I’m going and how I’m going to get there.

I do not cut across 3 lanes of traffic to exit the freeway, I’ll go to the next exit and turn around. I don’t tailgate. (Unless you come into my lane suddenly, and baby if you do that, It’s ON YOU!)

On mountain roads, I’m even more careful. Usually these are single lanes and most of the curves are blind curves. Going into a turn at 60 MPH and finding that traffic is stopped as you round the bend is a recipe for very bad things to happen. This is doubly dangerous during winter when you may have ice on the roads.

Even in summer you can round a blind curve and find a large assed rock sitting in the roadway. Guess what? You’re not going to be able to stop… Ooops!

At night in winter, when the temp is hovering around freezing, and the couple of people ahead of you are driving within the speed limit and carefully. I tend to hang back at least three or four car lengths. 

That gives me time to stop, and also means I’m not rushing someone, who for all I know isn’t familiar with the road and hasn’t driven much on snow or ice.

It’s just plain common sense.

That’s the situation I found myself in last night coming home from Big Bear. There were several cars ahead of me. They were all driving well and commensurate with the conditions and posted speed limits.

In other words, they were being responsible safe drivers and while they were moving slower than I could have been, I respected their caution. 

I downshifted and was letting the engine do the braking while generally maintaining my usual following distance.

I was the last car in the line and was actually enjoying the drive. There’s a Zen to knowing what your car will do and being with like-minded drivers. Every one of them was maintaining a good following distance and it was obvious that they were simply wanting to get down the mountain safely.

Every single one of them was using the passing lanes as intended, keeping to the right and allowing people to pass if they wished. Those folks that were passing weren’t passing to be in a hurry, it appeared to be mostly about the gearing and weight of their vehicle. They’d pass a car then settle back into the line, the only notable exception was that they weren’t on their brakes as much. We all signaled when the passing lanes ended and moved back to the left.

It was actually very pleasant. The moon was bright, the stars were pretty, the butt warmer was on, and I was relaxed.

Of course it couldn’t last… 

Another car pulls up behind me. I can tell it’s a Jeep from the headlights, and they’ve come out of nowhere. Obviously they’re in a hurry but there’s no passing lane (and won’t be for another 10 miles) and this idiot is right on my ass. 

He must’ve been able to see the line of cars in front of me and the ripple of brake lights as each of the people in front of me slowed to enter the next 25 MPH hairpin curve.

But (he or she) is fixated on the fact that there’s following distance between me and the next vehicle. Obviously, the .25 seconds that following distance represents is important. 

Sigh!

The car in front of me lights up its brake lights as the driver slows to enter the next hairpin. I likewise touch my brakes to slow and the Jeep turns on its brights.

Uh gee, thanks! Now I’m partially blinded entering a hairpin curve, (A helpful roadsign contained a drawing describing the curve.)  Partially blinded, I slow more because I can no longer see the wispy lane markers. This simple act of safety apparently enraged the driver of the Jeep.

I do my best to ignore them and concentrate on making it through the curve. As I come out of the curve the line of other drivers has come to a complete stop. I do the same and now the Jeep asshole is really pissed.

There were some rocks on the pavement which the careful drivers were picking their way through. The brights from the Jeep are annoying the car in front of me too, they’ve slowed considerably to pick their way around the obstruction.

I glance at the Nav system. 20 miles to go like this… Great!

The vehicles ahead pick up speed and I follow suit. 

I’m looking for a turnout. I’d like to get this moron off my ass, they’re way too close and every-time I brake I’m concerned that this idiot is going to plow into the back of my car. I’m no longer relaxed. In fact, I’m starting to build some road rage.

There’s no excuse for this kind of behavior, what exactly does this idiot think, that those other vehicles are an illusion? I’m thinking seriously about stopping my car and having it out with this stupid fuck. (I think to myself, “There’s no excuse for you to be itching for a throw down either.”)

I drive on.  I maintain my following distance to the next car.

I’ve got exam gloves in my pocket from my day of cleaning up after renters. I could put them on, block the road, beat the shit out of this moron, push their Jeep down the cliff to be found in spring, and leave no fingerprints… That puts a smile on my face and I realize I’m giving in to road rage.

I calm myself, step back from the abyss and keep driving. The moron behind me turns off their brights. That’s better, then the brights come on again. Grrrr!

The next turnouts are iced over and inaccessible. I keep driving.

Finally a passing lane opens up I move to the right, as does every other sensible driver. The moron passes exactly 3 cars before the lane ends. Now they’re stuck behind a UPS truck and another car. They’re not going any faster, but they’re in the debris trail the UPS truck is kicking up as they round every bend. All the rock chips must be doing a number on their paint. As they passed I could see the Jeep was blue. 

I smile…

15 miles further on, the mountain road dumps into a two lane highway, then a freeway.

We’re below 2000 ft and the temp is a balmy 40 F. I take the faster of the two lanes and I’m suddenly behind the Jeep. I’m not doing anything to annoy or harass them. I’m just there biding my time…

The two lane dumps onto the freeway and there’s indecision from the Jeep about which lane they want to be in. They’re obviously trying to decide which transition to take onto the 210. They have a choice, San Bernardino or Pasadena. I’m setting up to head toward Pasadena.

The interchange is fast approaching, I hit the button setting my car to “Sport” mode. I now have the full power of 300 HP and tighter handling and suspension of my vehicle at my command. They’re still wavering in their decision about the interchange, left, right, left, the Jeep appears to be bouncing off the lane markers.

I think they’re probably meaning to head to Pasadena. I accelerate to pace them, preventing them from making the lane change. It’s a long sweeper interchange and I’m doing 85 with ease. So is the Jeep. They accelerate and so do I. They’re signaling, ( these days, in this situation signaling is the equivalent of begging. Especially in this situation, since this driver hasn’t used a signal once down the mountain.) I don’t care – apparently neither does anyone else. Other people that the Jeep has annoyed are right on my tail.

There’s no opening and the moronic Jeep sails off toward San Bernardino They’re tapping their brakes in the fashion idiots will, when they realize they’re lost and looking for a way to turn around. I know that they can’t make any choices to even get off the freeway for 7 miles, and their best option is to go on down to the I-10 interchange 14 miles down the road.

Other people behind me toot their horns in a friendly way as we make the transition signaling our intention to merge. I gently slow to ambient freeway speed and signal to take the next to the slow lane avoiding 18 wheelers.

I notice a guy next to me with his interior light on. He’s the driver of the truck that had been in front of me when this all started. When I look over he gives me a “Thumbs-Up” sign. I nod and he’s smiling as his interior light goes off.

I’m smiling too. Maybe the Jeep driver will get lost and subsequently mugged in San Bernardino. One can only hope…

I never said I was perfect.

I only said my mantra is, “I will try not to road rage”

Besides, I wasn’t raging. I was purposefully driving to my destination.

Remember, there are other ways to exact your pound of flesh and they can be just as satisfying.