The Downwinding

Thanksgiving week was very nontraditional as we headed with children and their families to Marco Island, Florida for the week.  I will post a "few" photos later that show warm sunny days when our coldest days up north start driving me nuts.  We ate out at a very nice restaurant for a TG dinner which was better than many homemade I have eaten.  Only $40 a head for adults and $20 for kids and a huge buffet, so not as expensive as it could have been.

Said "Goodbye" to them yesterday (hiding my tears) as they boarded the plane and then we drove to Hollywood Beach on the other side of the state.  I slept 10 hours straight last night and hubby slept 11.  We must have been more exhausted enjoying the grands than we thought.  In and out of pools playing shuffle board, pool, boccie ball, putt putt golf, beach walking and shell collecting.  Yes, it was one of those perfect family holidays with as little tension as can be expected with six adults and 3 kids.

Today we drive out to visit my husband's parents' grave site in Fort Lauderdale and then probably we will find a nearby park to explore.

We are in Hollywood Florida now which is surprisingly very Cuban in mood.  Not the rich Cubans, but middle class and other Cuban families enjoying a vacation with the grandparents and kids on the beach and brickwalk on the Atlantic Ocean.  Lovers holding hands, children trying to kill us with  wheeled little trikes, and adults helping an elderly aunt down the promenade.   Almost like an Atlantic City without the gambling.  We do not hear much English, although there are some white heads like us.  Photos to follow.

Almost ready to go home, but hubby is not, so we will be on travel another five or six days.

Bright Ideas

Years ago, when I lived on a tropical island just north of the great continent of Australia, I would run into the lone or pair of Australian tourists enjoying the moderate Muslim culture in which I lived daily.  I think it was at an ex-patriot dinner party where the length of the evening found many had slid into more than moderate drinking and comfortably into politically incorrect talks, that an Australian fellow on his fourth (or fifth) bottle of beer said he would never want to live in America.  What a bunch of wussies we were.  Rules and more rules.  "My God you cannot spit on the sidewalk without some Jack telling you to hold your spit." 

Of course, most of us who live in the U.S. do not see that kind of  petty rule enforcement and we are probably the first to take a somewhat dim view of police officers wasting their time on such.  Unlike Singapore we CAN chew gum in public.

Still many Americans think we are a land of too many regulations which put a stranglehold on business and growth.  This may be true, but I have been unable to get a small business owner to give me an actual example of some ridiculous/unnecessary rule that brought his business to a standstill or cost an unreasonable fee as a follow-up to his statement. They are there, but we cannot protest against them if we do not publicize them.

BUT I can think of rules that I want kept in place that protect citizens from highway robbery.  For instance we now have more homeowners using solar and wind power to reduce their consumption of energy.  This costs them money up front in setup, but over time the effort reduces the size of the bill from the power company.  Every dollar saved by a homeowner reduces revenue for power companies.  The power company may attempt to tack on fees if you install a renewable system, and they may try to charge you for sending power back to them by a process fee.  Currently we have regulations that do not allow utilities to raise the cost of energy just because they are selling us less and they want to improve their profits!  I like this rule because heating our homes is a necessity, unlike other things we may buy. 

Other consumers are buying more efficient appliances that reduce their consumption of power from the grid. Replacing light bulbs with high efficiency LEDS means you use up to 80% less electricity. Smart thermostats cut back on use of heat or air-conditioning when no one is at home.  All of these are cutting into the bottom line of your utility company.  I can guarantee you if we did not have consumer protection regulations, you would be using less energy from utility companies and paying just as much if not more for that.

This is just one of the many, many regulations I support.

Thinking, thinking.....

The news of the world that has ramped down my mood with its dystopian stories has cut me low and lost.  I keep searching for a post that is worth both your and my time.  I find that any ideas are like die rattling in my head and I am rolling no numbers.  I am leaving Wednesday early for travel and have a post written at a prior time that will post tomorrow.  Maybe I will have time on my trip?

The sniper and my fear (years ago) where I worked?
The update on the situation with my math student?
The book(s) I am reading?
My travel over Thanksgiving?


I am open to ideas....

Liberty, Egality, Fraternity

AND of course I  also weep for Beirut, Syria and other places where religious craziness and  pathological anger kill innocent men women and children.

The Challenge of Things to Come--Thursday 13

OK...no more depressing thoughts...unless you add you own.  But here are some facts (most gleaned without added footnote links) for you to actually add to your arsenal of knowledge.  If it takes only a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes only a good brain with factual data to stop a bad idea or foresee and avoid the consequences of said bad idea...or some such paraphrase like that.

1. We are just a short way away from making cancer a chronic illness and not a deadly disease.
2. We are going to use fetal cell research to create animals to grow for harvesting organs or for testing drugs on diseases (probably mostly pigs).  This may lead to repair of that ugly facial  damage you got as a kid or the better replacement of a heart.
3. Drone photography is becoming the tool of the day for real estate...so be sure you are not nude sunbathing if you live next to that house with the For Sale sign.
4. With the enormous expansion of video and photo sharing apps you can now be found on the Internet whether you like it or not.
5. There is very little you can do on the Internet that is not shared with some company that wants your money.  Do you have familiar ads stocking you?  They have decided, based on your searches, that you want/need what they have to offer.
6. Scientists are now researching ways to use technology in human brains to help understand why we feel the way we do.  This might be expanded to help find soldiers in the field who need medical assistance.
7. UCLA did a study and found that most children, having unsupervised time with technology, had trouble recognizing emotions in others.  I just want to ask...is that due to the time with technology or the lack of time being supervised?
8. Is technology 'soulless' if it can read your feelings using input from your body?
9. There is a new lab in London that wants to research all kinds of technology and humans.  You may not want to volunteer but there are many who will. 
10. I have a friend on FB who has developed a device that you wear that monitors how Zen you are as you work.  It helps to lower your stress so that you are more productive.
11. Some researchers are monitoring a possible solar storm in ten years that could wipe out our use of technology as we know it...but do not worry because the government has plans to be prepared for such an event.
12. Facebook is already using a digital assistant called "M" that makes reservations, coordinates order delivery and sends reminders.  It does require a human 'robot helper' at this time.
13. All is not lost because China, UK, and USA are coming together in their searches for solutions to common apolitical problems.  Scientists and intellectuals come together in one place... the best students, faculty and industry experts from around the world, and apply their talents to solving the challenges of our time.

Just a Few More Weeks

Winter is less than a month away, although our fall has been oddly warm.  It was 80F two days ago!  I got my daughter-in-laws bulb-garden-birthday-gift almost complete and looking forward to what she will see in the spring.

I came back to find that my clematis has put forth two blooms and my cosmos seeds (volunteers) have sprouted as seedlings.  They will die, but it was a surprise.

I also am enjoying the abundance of our garden that remains.

This Swiss chard is huge but very tender.

Lots of lettuce and bok choy for salads and side dishes and fried rice.

The last of these sweet long peppers are almost too pretty to eat.

And it does look like strawberry jam in the spring.  This bed is out of control!

Tilting at the World

There were a few of my readers that felt the discussion of a dystopian future in the prior post was too overwhelming and depressing for thought.  There are those who are in the hands of God and feel they have no understanding of the future or what God has in mind and therefore focus on the day to day.  There are others who feel evil is a constant battle to be waged and they will pass tools onto the next generation to keep mankind safe and whole.  Then there are people, like me, who tend to be agnostic about the whole process, always refusing to give up the challenge, but also feeling the battle will not be easy and each turn must be analyzed carefully and sometimes solutions are very hidden behind our prejudices.  I know there is a precious goodness in mankind that means we will return whether in small numbers or large to restore beauty and love to the earth and to humankind no matter what dark days we go through.  Whether we are fighting religious fundamentalists, Bible belt salesmen, the unexpected results of our technology, or deeply greedy and evil leaders, we must prevail in our vesting of this planet and this civilization.   I also feel strongly that we cannot forget.  We cannot allow evil history to be buried and forgotten or we will continue to make the same mistakes.  We cannot be afraid that there is not enough to go around.  We cannot see human groups as "others."   They are us and that is sometimes frightening.

Evil can be difficult to understand because as writer Primo Levi says, "nor should you understand it, but it is a sacred duty not to understand, and that to understand something is to subsume it within yourself and we cannot do that."

Can you not look as a small child's face and know that your job is to stay aware and to always be brave?  You are their guardians of their future and you must prepare them before you hand over the reins to the young in the days to come.

The Future is Somewhat Dystopian

I just finished reading a book that explained to me that my desire for a strong middle class is a futile wish.  This segment of society will diminish as technology replaces the more mundane jobs and tasks within those jobs, including writing scientific theories(!) and even teaching.  This is already happening with computers collecting and analyzing data for everything from how our blood reacts to drugs to how a product can sell to the why of the disappearance of some esoteric insect.  We just need a handful of people to understand the data that drives an answer.  All that will be needed is about 10% in each profession to be the bridge between the computer and man or the designer and tinkerer of technology.  But since these, about 10%to 15%,  will be very well paid, the upper class will grow.

The disappearance of jobs means competition will be fierce and the victory will go to the focused and very smart students who understand the technology, those students for whom numbers are a fascinating puzzle, those who like cyphers.  Robots can replace all the low end jobs and even things that are not supposed to be jobs such as sex.  The poor class will grow larger.

Then the author goes on to say that there will be no class revolution.  The poor will have lots of cheap food, cheap entertainment and cheap housing to numb them.  They will accept that this is their lot in life.  They will not be the beneficiaries of cheap health care, though.  Since it is paid for by others, it will be parceled out even more judiciously and sparingly.  I am not saying I agree with this, just reporting on what was written.

The book is titled "Average is Over" by Tyler Cowen, recommended to me by our financial adviser, who should be most worried about his job  with the growth of the use of computers to crunch numbers....

P.S.  This view neglects the importance of creative thought and creativity in all the art forms that we love.

Dancing in the Cemetary

Taken at a famous Richmond, Virginia cemetery.

Night Rambling-Rumbling

Fighting insomnia always seems to be my battle during a full moon.  Perhaps I am a witch?  Is this my season to be out and about with black magic?  In these dark early mornings with only moonshine (the kind that splashes on the patio, not the kind that spills from a glass),  I feel like my brain is a room with ping-pong balls going off in all directions.  The balls are clean and shiny with lots of ping, at least.  They ricochet with endless energy before that first cup of coffee even gets made.  But I must contain them, as hubby is still sleeping and I try to be quiet.

I received a coupon for a digital course on meditation and I have been thinking of taking it, like a vitamin.  It is hard for me to find a quiet place to study something like this as I am never sure when hubby will be off on a project of his own.  And I need to concentrate as I have tried (superficially) and failed (completely) in doing this before.  Hubby has gotten more and more restless, like a dog chasing his tail,  as the weather gets cold and rainy and he finds he cannot fish or garden or just take off to visit some neighbor's project.  Winter has been his challenge in that he has no indoor hobbies, unlike I, who has photography, writing, cooking, reading, watching Netflix, doing bits and pieces of interior decorating....etc.  He spends time making plans to visit old stomping grounds, Florida. 

Mage gave me a tiny critique on my poem on my other blog and I realized it is time for me to grow up and stop creating poetry diarrhea.   I need to hone and pause and edit and write again.  Maybe I need a course on writing poetry?  That sounds so comfy warm for winter afternoons, really.  Yes, I see that face some of you are making...to each his own.

This will be the first Halloween we do not drive up to visit the kids.  Many reasons.  I thought they still had the company in their house (long story about company living there during a month-long house remodel).  Then they said they were going to a Halloween party and wanted to know if we could babysit childsit.  And for some immature reason I just felt a little used.  Sugar-infused childsitting was not exactly the family get-together I had in mind.  Thus, I made other plans, but those fell through, so now Halloween will be a non-event at my house as I live at the end of a dark and long road.  I long ago gave up decorating the house.  I envy those cute grannies that have little decorations in every corner...until the event is over and everything has to be rounded up and wrapped back in the storage boxes.  Also, no one really sees these decorations except hubby and I.

As a reward for reading my spew above, how about some of my last rose photos taken a few days ago before the rain ripped the petals to shreds to wrap up this disjointed barrage of thoughts?   These are the true colors, no photo-shopping.  I get such lovely colors when the nights are in the 40's and 50's and the days in the high 60's.  It is almost English garden weather, meditate on that!

Boxing Day?

I received an opportunity to spend the day canoeing a river that flows through a local land trust.  This part of the woods is not accessible unless you are invited or part of a canoe or hiking tour.  In this instance "we" had a job to do. 

We had our boxes, hardware, and axe and heavy mallet. 

We had one young person who spent most of her time waiting for us old folks to catch up.

We had to pull the canoes down the bay side of the land trust.  A large sand dune had been thrown up with the last storm and our river was now a temporary lake and we had to carry all the equipment and canoes over the dune.  From a distance we looked like satellite dish repair people or perhaps a unique Cajun band?  I wonder what the gas facility offshore thought.

The river itself had flooded to the edges of the woods and over!  We were able to paddle into places that were usually inaccessible by canoe or by walking.

Hard to believe there was at least 2.5 feet of water for the canoes into the grasslands.  The "cross" you see in the photo below is actually a trail marker when the land is dry.

And then, finally,  we got Wood Duck nesting box number one installed.  No one cut their finger or had the baffle fall on them!  We did not lose any nuts, bolts or screws in the water.  Final step was to add the wood chips shown in photo below.  (Yes, the "1" is backwards as the stencil flipped in the wind when it was being painted.  Children from one of the local schools also added their art.)

It was an adventure and I was glad I was along as photographer and did not own any waders.  You would not believe the number of spiders that attached to those waders when they hit the water.  Every little bug had been flooded out of his/her home.

We got four boxes installed and had to wait on the fifth due to high water.  The paddle home was stupendous.

Growing Pains

I live in a very rural area.  So rural that our County Councilmen have trouble reading tributes, perhaps written by others, at meetings honoring their citizens.  These Councilmen are educated, they just cannot read out loud...that includes at least three of the five officials.  Two of our Councilmen own liquor stores.  This is the path to political leadership in this county.   A few retired professionals from a more intellectual arena ran for office, but the big words they used frightened the voters, I guess.  This good-old boy majority leadership selection means our county struggles.

As I mentioned in a prior post, I lost my current doctor because she found working in this county too difficult.  They did not support medical service development and she had to send her patients out of county for specialized treatment.  She said five other doctors are thinking of following her.  We are limited in our selection already!

A recent meeting of various groups on "smart growth" for my state resulted in this news report:

"In the spring of 2006, a self-proclaimed “unholy alliance” of developers, environmentalists, civic and academic leaders staged a series of reality checks around the state during conferences designed to stare future growth in the face.  The leaders gave each table of eight to 10 participants piles of colored Legos representing their likely share of the 1.5 million new residents projected to swell the state’s population from 5.5 million to 7 million by 2030. It would mean adding more than half a million new homes.  On a map of their region, each table had to place all of that new growth...
The idea was not to discourage growth. This state, like most states, avidly courts economic expansion, more jobs, more people. The Reality Check conference organizers hoped to promote “smart growth,” or to place as many Legos as possible around places where growth was planned and roads and sewers already existed, thus protecting farms, forests and undeveloped Bay shorelines.
It was nonetheless a sobering exercise as Legos piled higher and existing towns began looking like little Manhattans. You could hear sighs and mutterings: “The traffic’s already hell there” or “my pile fell over…there goes the countryside.”  An Eastern Shore contingent built a paper boat and set their Legos sailing toward a coastal city, which has been losing population since the 1950s.  It was a good laugh — maybe a good idea — but the directive was firm: Growth is coming your way and you must accommodate it."

But at my County's table, a County commissioner, Ms. C, chose to differ. She swept a bunch of Legos off the map and into her purse. And it was not an exercise like barging people across the Bay to a coastal city.

This is what our County leaders do.  Respond with unrealistic solutions or ignore growth issues it seems.  Our County is long and thin and no more than 4 miles from tidewater in most directions.  Therefore our growth impacts the rivers and oceans.  Yet, if we have no growth, it means our county dies---well, goes into a coma.  And to give the good-old-boys their due, I realize what a difficult problem they have.

This week I was talking to my neighbor as we planned a dinner out with them before they leave for Florida for the winter.  We have lots of fried seafood places down here, but in the last few years several new and more delicious venues have emerged.   This County's population has double the median household income of the U.S. and one could hope that would support this growth.

The conversation went like this:

"How about The Basil Basket?"
"Nope, closing next week due to owners divorcing."
"OK....Lets go to the Lime Pie Tree."
"That place has had to close due to the foundation crumbling on the water side.  Don't know if it is a permanent close or not."
"Gee.  That leaves the Brasserie."
"Well, we better get in next week, because they are also closing for good very soon."
"Oh dear.  I heard yesterday that the Chinese restaurant is also closing."

I am well aware that the restaurant business is very difficult and most restaurants close within a few years...but all of our new ones are closing! 

And then, last month as we drove by the rock quarry on the other side of the river and just across the county line we saw this:

Some people say this other county is growing too fast and others wish our county was as progressive.  We got curious and drove down off the main road to see if we could find out what was going on with this new development:

Much closer and nicer than the old movie place we go to.  This even has reclining wide seats...I wonder if it will succeed?  I did notice that their ticket kiosks did not have the technology for chip cards, so someone wasn't paying attention.  I also noticed the impermeable surface of the largest parking lot I have seen in a while!