Tag: General

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In theory I should be writing a blog today

IMG 1325Trouble is that I’ve become so disgusted by the news I can’t even look at it without going all rage monster.

So I’m not looking at it.

As far as what’s going on around here just a little yard work. 

I pruned the heck out of my apple tree. It responded by doing this.

I’m hoping that I’ll have normal sized apples this fall. Last year I have a ton of mini apples that turned into great apple butter & apple sauce. They weren’t all that good to eat due to the size.

The yard work has been good for my sense of wellbeing. 

I haven’t been able to plant anything though. Usually by this time of year the hardware store has nice plants that I incorporate into the landscape for the season.

This year due to the lockdown those plants aren’t available. So the yard may look a little more like the surface of the moon.

I’m also hesitant to plant anything because last year the County decided that a plant that had been in my yard since 1992 absolutely had to be removed. Suddenly this plant was the worst thing on the planet and they were threatening fines if I kept it.

I had to pay to have it removed.

But I noticed that other neighbors didn’t remove their versions of this plant, and they weren’t fined or asked to remove them.

The funny part of this is that the plant in my yard was no larger the 3ft by 3 feet and was at the outer edge of the yard bounded by the driveway and the street. It was also maintained to be no larger than 3”x3”. Ironically for that plant being such a fire hazard, when the house burned in 2008, all the plants survived!

I find that I’m losing interest in maintaining my yard and have considered just killing everything out front.

Every year, some bozo from the county comes around and bitches about something and start imposing fines. They claim it’s for fire control.

What pisses me off about it is that I’ve got more than the recommended defensive space around the house.

I moved here 70 miles outside LA, because I didn’t want anyone telling me what I could and couldn’t do on my own property. While I don’t have an HOA, I do have county busybodies telling me what I can do.

I’m considering putting a sign up in the yard this year. Something that says;

“Hey County, you’ve fucked up our street, your flood control project made things worse, you’re spending yet more money to build a higher bridge, (Which we told you to do 10 years ago, instead of your plan to build a sluice,) So fuck off! Leave me alone, don’t set foot on my property, and fuck your fines if you don’t like the plants in my yard!“

What burns me about this so much is that I worked and continue to work really hard to plant native plants in the yard. With just a few exceptions everything is drought resistant and native to this area.  I try to have something blooming year round. Natives can be very pretty and easy to care for.

But having to deal with annoying letters and threats of fines year after year and explaining what each plant in the yard is year after year is getting tiresome.

Which is why I’m considering a lunar surface model, at least in the front.

If I go that route, the sign in the front will read; “Dear neighbors, This Lunar surface representation courtesy of the County. I got tired of the threats.“

I could move a lot of the plants to the back, then install a wooden fence to prevent the county from seeing anything from the street. God forbid some bozo would actually have to get out of their car and look.

Maybe I’m just reacting to the lockdown, Nope! I’m reacting the constant erosion of my rights by power mad jackasses who decide arbitrarily what is for my own good.

I’m really thinking it’s time for me to leave kommifornia. The way the news and politics are going here in the USA, maybe it’s time to ask about becoming a citizen of another country entirely.

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You know, I’d like to go hang with a friend…

I’d do it too.

After all, there’s a 92% chance that a friend and I would survive Coronavirus even if  we got it. Shouldn’t we as adults be able to make that decision?

In fact I’m pretty sure that at least a couple of my friends would say, “Screw this,” and we’d sit outside have a couple of beers and laugh & talk.

After all, being adult is supposed to be about making your own choices and accepting the consequences of your actions isn’t it?

Yeah, you’d think that was true. But is it? 

We live in really strange times.

We have free speech (as long as what you say conforms to the party line.) One has only to look at the way people with dissenting opinions are shouted down. Two Bakersfield ER doctors are a recent prime example. Banned and censored by Google/Youtube but their video is still available here

We have the right to privacy, except online, (or during the lockdown. Then your neighbors may call the cops if you’re seen with someone else, even outside your home while maintaining social distancing. Some place encourage your neighbors to rat you out.) 

We have the freedom pursue happiness,  (Unless during the lockdown that happiness is alone, in a motorized boat on a lake in Michigan, fishing, or if you’re paddle boarding 80 YARDS offshore in California.) 

We have the freedom to go outside and get some exercise, during this lockdown (Unless that exercise takes the form of tossing a football in a park.) These kids found this out in New Jersey. 

I’d take the risk of Coronavirus to go hang out and have some social interaction.  What I & my friends won’t risk is authoritarian police busting and arresting us for making an adult choice accepting a certain amount of medical risk.

I can stay home in my bed for a week or two to get over a virus. My friends and I cannot afford to be arrested, and fined while we’re unemployed.

So the authoritarians win.

I can see some aspects of the lockdown for the sake of the common good. The being said, I am developing serious concerns about longer term damage to our freedoms.

With the new “normal” how much will we lose, and how much will we be willing to call acceptable losses?

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Why is everything a battle?

bangheadhere.jpegLately, it feels like I’m spending all my time either fighting or preparing to fight.

I’ve been banging my head against the wall for the past 12 months attempting to find a new job. Then just as unemployment insurance ran out we’re in lockdown.

Care to guess what that does to your job search?

Then Congress and the President say they’re extending unemployment benefits and sending a stimulus check. 

Great I think. I’ll be able to go on for a little while longer. Well, you’d think that, but I’ve not gotten a stimulus check and the Unemployment people haven’t gotten their shit together yet either.

In practical terms, this means that I’ve gotten two more battles added to my plate. One is getting the IRS website to accept my banking information which they had on file and have had for years, but their site said they didn’t have any information. 

Uhhh, wrong! You fuckers know exactly where to send the bill and exactly how to harass me at a whim. Now when it comes to you having to pay… Suddenly you can’t find my information? I call Bullshit!

On the plus side, I got them sorted out this morning.

One battle won.

Next, on to the unemployment folks. Their website is even worse than the IRS. It looks like something out of the ‘70s. In truth it probably is. Although the site says that it’s implemented the changes to allow for the extension and application for the Coronavirus relief funding when you go through their merry-go-round of links you end up at the same place that tells you you’re not eligible.

“Oh you have to use Chrome, to access the site.” 

Great so you’re telling me that I have to download a browser from the evil empire that Google has become, to allow being tracked, and hacked, and having 2 instances of googlesoftwareupdateagent running on my computer even when Chrome ISN’T running.

It’s also quite interesting that while these bits of software are running I see an uptick in network communication that is continuous.

Just what are these “Agents” doing? Why are there two instances sucking up my computer resources? I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask the question. I haven’t opened the code to analyze what this agent actually does, but I don’t think its what the name implies.

ReallyI have to have Chrome? Why? Could it be that your H1B1 programmers don’t know that adherence to HTML standards actually allows compatibility with multiple browsers? Or was it that they just had to use some little snippet of code that they could only get from Google? Instead of one of the myriad open source distributors

I download the wonder that is Google Chrome go back through the merry-go-round and guess what? I still can’t access the page that allows me to fill in the information to get the FEDERALLY FUNDED package. 

Gee thanks you California EDD dunderheads.

Battle number two – Lost for the moment!

Next Battle is the case of the missing check from the insurance company over the car. The check was issued and sent to the BMW Dealer. That check triggered a number of attempts on the part of the BMW dealer to reopen the insurance claim and ask for more money. WRONG! Sorry but that isn’t happening, I’ve seen to it.

Add to it that the BMW dealership underlings weren’t returning phone calls.  A strongly worded letter was sent to the one man at the dealership that runs by old world standards. I shouldn’t have had to involve him, but when all normal channels fail, you reach out to folks you know.

He responded this morning letting me know that he’d forwarded the letter to the right person over at the body shop. I’m expecting a call later in the week. It’s going to take the manager of the body shop some time to un-peel this onion. His underlings made a hell of a mess in their accounting and documentation.

Battle number three, indeterminate win/loss but it’s worth fighting because it’s over a grand that I’m owed.

Then on to battle number four.

The job search, and I’m back to banging my head against the wall.

At least it’s warm and pretty and I’m sitting on the back deck with a nice view.