Grumpa Joe's Place

Global Warming Ice Age

Posted on 01/06/2020 by Grumpa Joe

The first of June and it is cold again. Of course cold is relative. The temperature today is what I considered warm back in January, but for June it is now cool, no, cold. At 1:00 p.m. it has risen to 67 degrees F. All this attention to cold has been brought on by my reading. I’m attacking a group of books the titles of which I have seen for years but never attempted to read. The latest is South: The Story of Shackleton’s Expedition. The adventure took place during World War One 1914-17. The short version is Ernest Shackleton’s journey to be the first too find the south pole by land. How he and his crew ever survived this trip to frozen hell is nothing short of a miracle.

Throughout the read I kept thinking about how those who truly believe that global warming will cause Antarctica to melt are daft. I recommend theses people read this book and then tell me you still believe it will happen because we use fossil fuels. I believe the world will exhaust its supply of fossil fuel long before Antarctica melts. As long as earth is tilted as it is, and as long as the south pole is where it is, at the bottom of the sphere it will take armageddon to melt it even partially.

Oh yes, the earth can tilt like it did when our moon was formed and send the Sahara desert into a zone where it is cold and then maybe just maybe the south pole would melt. But, wouldn’t it stand to reason that as the existing pole shifts northward to expose it to the sun that another area of the planet will take its place and freeze into a new Antarctica? Wouldn’t it also stand to reason that as the planet shifted it would do so slowly thus causing the freeze to occur in a continuum so by the time Antartica was melted its counterpart would be frozen?

Reading this story was a double feature for me. I loved it as an adventure and second it got my stagnant brain to begin thinking logically about what would happen to all that ice. The reason for the ice is because most of Antarctica is in the dark just as the north pole is in the dark for much of it’s year. The second reason is that because the axis of the earth is tilted it puts Antarctica further from the sun so the place is really cold. Shackleton recorded minus fifty-five degrees below zero for a winter segment of his journey. He described what happens when the ice that had trapped and was holding his ship captive, cracks open and water fills the void. At minus 55 the water turned to ice four inches thick within minutes.

The photo above shows the change of Antarctic sea ice between 1850 to 2013. I learned in my fourth grade science class that water expands when it freezes, and it subsequently reduces when it melts. What that tell me is that we should have been seeing a loss of coastal regions to ice melt water since 1850. Have we? I have never read nor heard any such phenomenon reported. Try this experiment for your self. Fill a glass tumbler with ice cubes to the brim, next add water until it is at the brim. Let the ice-water filled glass sit for a couple of days and watch to see if there is any water on the surface the glass sits on. There won’t be any. That is because as the ice melts it’s volume contracts you will have a full glass of water without ice when it is done.

Watch the animation above and see how the sea ice changes from year to year. Tell me have you read of any reports that the oceans are rising and falling at our shorelines in sync with this changes? I haven’t.

I believe only God can increase global warming that will cause the ice at the poles to melt. I don’t believe that mere men can effect such an extreme shift in temperature that will cause the ice to melt and the oceans to flood the earth.

My recommendation to all the people who believe in man made global warming that will cause the ice at the south pole to melt and flood the world is this: put your energy into believing in God. Nature will take care of planet earth and we will not be responsible for it’s demise, but God will.

Filed under: Biography, Book Review, family, Science | Tagged: ice, Man Made Global Warming, South Pole | Leave a comment »

It Just Opened and Now It’s Closed

Posted on 31/05/2020 by Grumpa Joe

It is tempting to restart a new log starting with “Day 1-“. Last night I walked down to the center of town and found many happy people eating, drinking, talking, laughing like they were having a good time. This morning I received a phone call from my nephew who reported that I should stay away fronted Orland Mall because of a report he got about an mob riot planned there today. Since then the expected mob has been verified by local police reports, and businesses just reopened have been shut down.

All morning and into the afternoon friends have been texting me of reports of the riot mob and their progress across the suburban area of Chicago. I always thought a riot was a spontaneous outburst of violence brought on by some provocating act. When the riot is caused by an army of people from outside the community to provoke violence I define it as a war. Was should be treated differently than a riot. War is an act of aggression on the populace for the purpose of overtaking their property. In my opinion, it should be met with force and the goal to end it to defeat the aggressors with death.

It is obvious that the death of a black man at the hands of Minneapolis police has stimulated a new movement which at this point doesn’t have a new name yet, but it is definitely not spontaneous it is well organized and funded by some larger movement within our society. My guess is that it is left wing, probably communist in origin. They don’t give a rats ass about the guy who died at the hands of a merciless cop, but rather they do want to overthrow the government so they can rule ruthlessly to meet their own agenda. The man who died was a local problem. People in Chicago, don’t really give hoot about problems in Minnesota just as Minnesotans don’t give a hoot about Chicagoans. If they did they would be down here rioting at anytime when there are ten blacks killed in a single weekend. In the case of Chicago, the deaths of blacks is not at the hands of white cops, but at the hands of blacks. It is okay if blacks kill blacks, but God help us if a black is killed by a white. If a white is killed by a cop, or by a black, it is unreported but cheered behind the scenes.

We are racially divided today more than we were before this stupidity of a far left agenda began over forty years ago. It gets worse every year, and sad to say the first black president only fuels the divide. I for one hoped he would change things for the good. He changed things but only for the worse. Trump has made an effort to unite the blacks and was mildly successful until now. It is my opinion that his success is the reason for the black uprising. The black leaders who have struggled for years to make their people part of the communist system recognize that they are losing ground and have to stir things up to fan the flames of revolution. Pour acid into the wounds of the black man and blame it on whitey so the black can be brought back into line with the party that holds them.

If I were mayor, governor, or president today, I would meet these people head on at the border and arrest them all be they peaceable or not. Blood would flow, but it would end quickly and without any time for lawyers to get involved in defending peoples rights. My actions would be to take the lawyers out too.

Someday, I may need a lawyer to help me get out of jail, and I will beg for mercy, but as soon as he does his job, I’ll be back at deriding him until he is in jail too. The entire legal system is just that a system. Lawyers are trained to know the system and to play by the rules. Laws are written by lawyers so they can easily defend or prosecute individuals for breaking the laws. There is no human compassion involved in the laws, only black and white did you do it or not? When things get grey the system is supposed to make the prosecutor prove without a doubt that I am guilty. If he can’t declare me guilty or he can change the charge to something lessor to make me guilty. The bottom line is that in the legal system we so love to behold we will never win if the prosecution doesn’t want us to. One reason blacks don’t like the system is because cops always find a way to beat the charge against themselves.

Even in the case of George Floyd the blacks see only the evidence of the cop holding the man down with his knee on the black man’s neck. They don’t listen to ,nor do they want to know that George didn’t die on the spot, he died four days later. The blacks can only riot and proclaim that the man begged for air, Well he had to be getting air from someplace because he lived for four days after the event. No one sees that as a clue that maybe there was something else that occurred that caused him to die, and not the knee on his neck. In their emotions to get justice (revenge) over whitey they demand on the spot correction of the problem. In other words the cop should have been executed on the spot and hung up on public display. Video evidence shows without a shadow of doubt that the man was treated brutally for his time.

I have a problem with why he was put in cuffs i the first place. It is rumored that he was caught passing a bad check for twenty dollars. Yes that is a crime, but does stealing twenty dollars mean you get handcuffed and thrown to the ground on your belly with your arms tied behind your back while a man with serious personal problems holds you in place with his foot on your neck? The answer is NO.

People get away with twenty dollar crimes everyday in America. The blacks believe only they get treated like George Floyd. Is that reason enough to organize riots all across America to loot, burn, and destroy property of innocents? The answer is NO.

Most likely, I don’t have all the facts at hand to simplify the situation. I don’t know if George resisted arrest, if he didn’t’ then the cop is at fault for brutality. If he did resist arrest he should have known that cops don’t like resistance from people they apprehend and will take overly cautious measures to protect themselves and their coworkers from harm. My guess is that George tried to get away. Was the knee on the neck necessary to subdue George, I don’t know, but I think not. He could have been subdued another less brutal way like locking him into the back of a police car.

My step son was a cop. He came upon a burglary in process one night and entered the building to stop the crime. He was involved in a scuffle with the perpetrator. Guns were involved with a wrestling match trying to take control of the weapon. The burglar was losing the match when he decided to bite the cop in the arm to make him let go. He sunk his teeth deep into his forearm and he did let go and was able to run, but was apprehended immediately by the back up. The cop was sent to the hospital for stitches and tetanus shots, and had limited motion in his arm having damaged tendons. He was put on leave until all the facts were known. The burglar filed charges against the cop stating this civil rights were violated. The cop was on suspension for nine months while the courts sorted out the facts. The perpetrator lived happily in jail while the cop sweated losing his job, and spent countless hours in rehab getting his arm motion back for nine months. The outcome was in favor of the cop, but he lost his drive to be an aggressive cop. He figured why am I busting my buns for breaking up a robbery and putting myself at risk for losing a job or even my life? The gun could have fired while they struggled and gone the wrong way. Cops are taught to shoot first and answer questions later. That system saves cop lives. The cop that subdued George Floyd took serious action to subdue him before George had opportunity to do him harm.

Would we have seen the video if it showed George killing the cop? My guess is NO we wouldn’t have seen it. A black man killing a white cop doesn’t make news.

Filed under: family, Society | Tagged: Antifa, George Floyd, riots | Leave a comment »

Day 73-SIP-It’s Over

Posted on 30/05/2020 by Grumpa Joe

It’ll be different writing a post everyday without the thematic SIP status. Yesterday our town of Frankfort, IL officially opened the businesses in town thus ending the Stay in Place order. As I rode my two wheeled convertible through the town on the bike path I saw Kansas street blocked with concrete barriers we often see in front of US embassies around the world. The Village fathers agreed to donate the street to the resident restaurants, three of them, a place to serve meals. It was cool to see the colorful umbrellas dotting the streetscape. There were actually people there too, even though it was still the middle of the day. Our residents are hungry for food and socialization. The servers wore masks.

A quick check of the verified Covid infections in our county is down again and hopefully diminishing to zero. The bike path was very crowded with bikers, strollers, and walkers. Everyone seems happy, but were still cautiously hugging the edges of the path to maintain distancing. How easily we were trained, and no one dangled a piece of cheese in front of us to get us to behave that way. I guess the prospect of death is more effective than cheese.

The temperature today is a bit chilly compared to the week gone by. It will keep me in the house until the sun warms things up to the seventies at least. I have my eye on a patch of wild strawberries that is invading my yard. I am paying for last summer’s neglect. I proudly bragged to my friends last year that I didn’t pull a single weed and thus the garden reverted to what it does best, it grew. The trouble with letting it go is that what grew best were what I call native perennials, sometimes referred to as weeds. June is rumored the peak growing season in our horticultural zone 5, and it is proving the rumor. I can see things that look ugly growing taller as I walk by them. The amount of work required to neaten things up is exponential as the sun shines longer each day. As long as I am looking at things in this manner the funk will not invade my psyche like it did yesterday. Thank you Lord for getting me through yesterday.

Later this afternoon we will watch the second attempt to launch our astronauts into space. The weather last Wednesday was not correct for a safe launch so it was scrubbed. The prediction at this moment is a fifty percent chance of the rocket firing for the same reason, i.e. conditions are not optimum.

What makes this space launch special is that it is being done by a private company and not the government. When NASA launched, the success rate was very high and we, the population. actually got bored with the missions. Now that SpaceX is doing the deed, we again think it is exciting. Probably because we like fireworks and the idea of watching a billion dollar rocket blow up is thrilling. Space flight development is no different than ordinary flight development during the age of the Wright brothers. The simple difference is that building a kite is much simpler than building a control-fired bullet the size of the Empire State building. Although, at the time Orville and Wilbur Wright took as much care in proceeding as does SpaceX. Another difference is that Orville and Wilbur kept things quiet. I think because they didn’t want to excite authorities to their amusements on the beach and cause them to be sent to the looney bin for endangering the sea life along the Atlantic shores. In today’s scene the lunacy is trusting a for profit company to be in charge. How do we know that each part of the assembly was made to rigid specifications by certified US vendors, and not by a Chinese vendor who cuts corners, uses materials that are less than pure, and certifies to doing things right, and is the lowest bidder?

While all this goes on America burns. I am sure the latest uprising is fueled by politics, but executed by blacks who like to jump at any opportunity to destroy and kill whitey. I watched the video of the Minneapolis policeman with his foot on the neck of a man who was being apprehended. It appeared to me that the guy was down and in hand cuffs he didn’t need to be restrained by a jackboot between his head and shoulders. It was extreme to say the least. What incites the blacks is when their idea of justice is not practiced, They would have wanted the policeman who was responsible for that treatment to be immediately apprehended, tried, found guilty and executed in the street within a few minutes of the event. Anything short of that is cause for riots, looting, burning and killing all across the country. What is even sadder is that we have police who take out their frustrations on victims with brutality. When the victim is black, the brutality factor seems to escalate by several factors of ten. I will never volunteer to be a policeman. The job gets worse and worse. These guys are expected to be psychologists and warriors who can determine in split seconds the difference between someone who is resisting arrest legitimately, or someone who is resisting with the intent to kill you, and escape to kill someone else too.

Though we have been conditioned in a mere seventy-two days to become docile COVID prisoners our attempts for the last one hundred and fifty-five years to treat blacks like humans has failed. Will it ever happen? I don’t know, but I believe we have a better chance of developing a vaccine for COVID-19 before we find a way to live with blacks.

Filed under: family, Gardening, Government, Sarcasm, Society | Tagged: Black-White Relations, Covid-19, Vaccine | 2 Comments »

Day 72-SIP-Funk

Posted on 29/05/2020 by Grumpa Joe

What a beautiful day it is today! The sun is shining brightly, it is warm, and the birds are singing cheerfully. My mood however is down. Why? How the heck do I know? If I did I might do something about it. Depression, when it occurs is a strong phenomenon. I get this way occasionally, and I hate it. It is only eleven o’clock in the morning and I have already taken a thirty minute nap. Somehow my drowsiness is connected with the sadness. It could be that the 29th of the month is Peg’s death date. She has been gone for eleven months now, but I still feel her presence and wish she could be here with me. Of course I want her here like she was before she went into dementia.

She spent her time in hell on this earth. Seven years of declining memory, four years of lost voice, three years of lost mobility, and finally the end. The lost voice part had to be hell by itself. When a woman who loves to talk can no longer do so she must be existing in silent agony. She spent hours staring out of front window looking and waiting, but for what? I often wondered what was going on in her mind. What were her thoughts? What did she feel?

On gorgeous days like today, I wheeled her out to the deck and down the ramp to the patio, and we sat together next to the pond watching the fish and the birds. I talked to her by retelling our experiences while we were traveling. She never responded in any way, not a smirk, not a grin, not a smile, not a wink, not anything. Eventually, when I spotted a mosquito on her I wheeled her back into the house. She never complained that I did.

Grief is a strange thing. Until I wrote the words above about the 29th being her death date, it never occurred to me that I am feeling punk because of grief. At least it is something to blame my crappy attitude on. In the past, I used exercise to get me out of the funk, and today, I will do the same. Hopefully it will be the cure.

Today is also the first official day that our businesses in town are opening under strict rules. Cafe’s and restaurants are open for outside eating. Those that had patios have it easy, those that don’t are scrambling to put a few tables and chairs out in front of their places. Even the town is working to block off one street to open more outdoor seating space for their customers. Hair salons and barber shops are also open with some strict guidelines, like by appointment only, no waiting inside, masks for stylists and customers, and disinfecting clean ups every half hour.

I have been watching the numbers of COVID cases in our zip code and until this week it has been flat, but yesterday confirmed cases jumped to 124 from 75, is it coincidence, anomaly, or fact? On days like today when I am in a funk, I really don’t give a damn about being careful. I might be better off as a statistic. I really don’t mean that, but it is the way I feel. By tomorrow this feeling will pass, and I’ll want to make my time on this earth worth talking about. I will want a straight pass through the pearly gates without any questions asked.

Filed under: Aging, Biography, family, grief, Memories, Seniors | Tagged: Covid-19, depression | Leave a comment »

Day 71-SIP-Pandemic Or TV Series?

Posted on 28/05/2020 by Grumpa Joe

Adventure stories turn me on, and I am reading one that is probably the hardest journey ever undertaken by man, the trip to the South Pole. Maybe I am wrong, perhaps the trip to the moon was just as hard. The idea of living in the cold for two years does not appeal to me at all. Not to be able to see the color green as in vegetation would be a living hell. Yet the men who undertook this journey lived in conditions totally unbearable to normal people. These were not normal people, they were extraordinary men.

Reading this account during the warm spring-summer months is recommended. When it is ninety outside and you are reading about living in minus fifty it has a cooling effect on the body. Sir Ernest Shackleton led this exploration in 1914. His trip was to be the first to cross the continent of Antarctica via the South pole. The sad story is that this first attempt failed, and it became an adventure to survive. I think I would rather live with COVID-19 than to take on such a trip as Shackleton did.

The book is over seven hundred pages long, and I have just crossed the four hundred page mark. I have finally reached a point where I can’t seem to put it down. Even as I write this, I am longing to finish so I can resume reading.

At my Tuesday Night At the Stray Bar Club via Zoom meeting one of the members suggested I watch a new series titled Billions. Since, I have watched two episodes and I am hooked on another story. I heard about this series months ago, but steered clear because the principal character is played by actor Damian Lewis who played Brody in Homeland. I truly believed I would continue to visualize this man as Brody in the new series. I didn’t want to ruin the image of Brody the marine who was captured and imprisoned by radical Islamist terrorists for eight years.

It didn’t happen, I didn’t see this new character as Brody. After ten minutes of the new story, I saw him as the totally new person playing the part of a billionaire hedge fund manager. The plot of this new story is wrapped in the mystery of how hedge fund managers avoid prosecution. The main conflict is between big money business and big power government. I’ll watch all the episodes and look forward to the next season too.

Watching a series is like watching a movie that doesn’t end. The story keeps developing throughout all the episodes and getting more and more complicated as it does. Usually, there is an end which wraps up the season, with a teaser to pull you in to the next season’s story. One benefit of modern TV is that when a season is over the entire set of episodes is available anytime you want twitch it. It is a very popular pastime to binge watch thirteen episode stories at one sitting (all day). I only hope the series called COVID-19 doesn’t mimic one of these tv series. I hate the idea of COVID being a story that doesn’t quit.

Filed under: Biography, family, Technology | Tagged: Billions, Binge Watching, Hedge Funds, Shackleton, South Pole, TV Series | 1 Comment »

Day 70-SIP-Movies

Posted on 27/05/2020 by Grumpa Joe

Thank God for streaming. If it weren’t for movies on demand I would have gone nuts during the past seventy days. In fact, I would have gone mad after Peg’s death if it were not for films. It all began when my financial advisor a forty something person asked me if I ever used Amazon Prime, On Demand, or Netflix and I responded huh? He walked me through the steps I would take on my remote and I went to work. It was a new adventure for me since I am not that adventurous anymore, not that I ever was a thrill seeker. However, I must admit that I have done a lot f things many of my friends wouldn’t even think about doing.

I love to keep logs, and always have. I love reviewing my journals and remembering bike rides I took, or projects I worked on. After Peg died people would ask me how I was spending my time. I would answer I watch movies, and read books. “Which movie,” they would respond and even though I could tell you the entire plot and all the characters if you asked me for the title, I couldn’t remember, nor can I remember the names of the actors unless they are from the fifties. So, I began to keep a log of movie titles. Then people would say, “gosh, I never heard of that one, when was it made?” From that point on I began keeping the year a movie was made also. I have seen so many stories that now when I look at the list, I have to strain to remember a single character. When I finally connect with one the story gradually comes back to me.

When I was a kid we got a bonus when the theater offered a double feature. We saw coming attractions, two cartoons, a newsreel, and two full length films for the price of one. Now I watch as much as I can bear in the comfort of my home without commercials.

Since Peg’s departure I have logged 180 films. Now I’m wondering what I did on the days when I didn’t watch a movie. I know I was hooked on Homeland for all eight seasons with thirteen episodes in each that leaves me with 81 days when I didn’t watch a film. I guess I still watch regular tv once in awhile.

Thankfully, the films are all rated. I never watch one that has less than a fifty rating, there is at least one actor that I recognize, and the title is a magnet. None of what I have watched is a stupid comic book hero or an action movie filled with car crashes, and the like. The stories I look for have to be about real people who suffer all the ills of living. I guess one could call that drama. I tend to also like romantic comedy.

Below, I have included the list of my movies. I recommend about forty percent of them as excellent stories and another forty percent as good stories, and about twenty percent as don’t waste your time. Which is which I can not say, I don’t remember them all. Usually, if I can’t remember the story line of a film it is because I thought it a waste of my time. How many of these films have you seen?

Movies:
Love By The Book
Lucky in Love
Mail Order Bride
Abduction
Angry Angel
For Better or for Worse
How To Fall in Love
Love Blossoms
Love by the Book
My Boyfriends Dogs
Site Unseen
Angels In The Endzone
Letters to Juliet
Blue Streak
Cluny Brown 1946
Early Summer 1951
The Bank Job ****
Fun With Dick and Jane
American Gangster
An Affair to Remember*****
The A Team
Intern
In the Line of Fire
The Bridge On the River Kwai*****
Cowboys and Aliens
At War With the Army
Magnum Force
Like Cats and Dogs
The Heist****
Echo
12 Dates to Christmas***
Edge of the Garden
An Old Fashioned Christmas
An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving
A Belle for Christmas
A Christmas Too Many
Love the Coopers
Christmas Caper
Pizza My Heart
The Gambler, The Girl and The Gunslinger
Freshman Father
Cancel Christmas
Christmas Cupid
The National Tree
So You Said Yes
Holiday Joy
Smart Cookies
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2*****
A Christmas Story
Goodnight for Justice
Goodnight for Justice the Measure of a Man
Goodnight for Justice Queen
Miracle on Christmas Lake****
The Wizard of Oz
A Christmas Carol
That Music Teacher****
Call Me Klaus
This Christmas
McFarland USA*****
St. Vincent*****
Hannah’s Law
The Family
Snow
Snow 2
The Holiday
Jack and Jill
The Family Man
Focus
The Giver
The Wild Girl
You Can Count on Me
The Next Three Days
Wanderlust
This Is Where I Leave You
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Central Intelligence
The Case for Christmas
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates
Deliveryman
No Attached
Inside Man
Hostage
Aloha
Blue plane
Beauty and the Beast
Dead Man Down
Never go back
Burnt
Green fingers
Broke Back Mountain
Being Rose
All Saints
The Devil’s Own
Boundaries
An Unfinished Life
Nobody’s Fool
The Time of Their Lives
How Do You Know
Solitary Man
Banger Sisters****
White Boy Rick****
The Missing
Whatever Works
Where the Rivers Flow North
The Wife*****
Last Cab To Darwin*****
Malena
Ruby Gentry
Secrets of the Summer House
The Savages
Midnight in Paris****
Celeste and Jesse Forever
Pride and Prejudice
The Grey
The Bourne Ultimatum*****
In the Line of Fire
Heavens Gate
Loopers
Excalibur
The Bog Lebowski****
Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day****
Still Alice
Mud
Australia*****
The Man From Snowy River
Boyz n the Hood
Primary Colors
My Best Friends Wedding
American Made
Bohemian Rhapsody*****
A Star Is Born****
Days of Heaven
Heaven
Marley and Me*****
The Italian Job*****
Midnight Run
Get Out
Thelma and Louise*****
Logan
The Grace of Jake
Web of Dreams
Safe House
Secondhand Lions
Pleasantville
Elena
King and I*****
The House
A Dogs Way Home*****
The Kingdom
A Bag of Marbles*****
Eye In the Sky
The Sugarland Express
Living Out Loud
The Help
Adaptation
House Boat(1958)****
No Way Out(1988)
Blue Jasmine(2013)
Election(1999)
Bad Education(2019)
A Dog’s Journey(2019)*****
The Goldfinch(2019)*****
Invisible Life(2019)
Private Lives of Pippa Lee(2009)****
Tater Tot & Patton(2019)*****
The Orchard(2018)***
Definitely Maybe(2008)
Our Idiot Brother(2011)****
Hotel Artemis(2018)****
Queen of Hearts(1989)*****
The Visitor(2008)
At Eternity’s Gate(2018)*****
Brad’s Status(2017)****
Daisy Winters(2019)****
Cas &Dylan(2015)****
Hide Away(2011)*****

Filed under: Biography, family, grief, Hobby | Tagged: comedy, Drama | Leave a comment »

Day 69-SIP-Miracles Take Awhile

Posted on 26/05/2020 by Grumpa Joe

The day has just about ended and I almost let this post slip away from me. I was already in my movie watching mode when it came to me that I hadn’t written a post yet. So here it is.

I m feeling a bit punk today because I let myself get some sunburn. The first burn of the year always causes me some displeasure. I actually had to put on my fleece jacket to stay warm. Not that the temperature is high, but the burn makes me feel cold.

People are really beginning to come out of their caves to participate in life again. Car traffic is definitely picking up, and there are more people in the stores. Tomorrow, I have to visit the grocery store to pick up essentials. I have worked down my stockpile of food to the point where I am scratching components to cook.

The bike path is now crowded during the week. With everyone home from work they get out to walk and ride often. Before COVID-19 it was only on Saturday and Sunday that the path was crowded. I waited until after supper to take a walk, and there were still many people doing the same. I reminded myself that it is Tuesday and that my bike club always took rides together on Tuesdays. The jocks rode in one group and the easy riders in another. I was always with the easy riders. We called ourselves the Turtles. Some riders can maintain 18-20 mph at a steady pace, but my average was and is still in the 12-14 mph range. It is no fun riding with people that leave you in the dust. So I rode with people who I could leave in the dust. Except, I adjusted my speed down to stay with the fun group. The fast group took a route on regular roads and completed twenty miles in an hour and twenty minutes. The Turtles stayed on the bike path and completed the same miles but it took a lot longer, plus we stopped for ice cream while the jocks didn’t stop for anything.

After spending two hours in the garden this morning transplanting and splitting Stella Dora Lilly’s I was consumed and could not do much the remainder of the afternoon. I took a shower and watched videos on Youtube, mostly comedy. Some of the better ones were of the Johnny Carson Show when he had Richard Prior, and George Carlin on at the same time. Their monologues were okay, but the banter between them on the couch was hilarious.

Tuesday is also the day my friends meet for a couple of hours to have a drink and friendly conversation. Normally, we met at the Stray Bar but it is closed, so we’ve been meeting virtually on Zoom. It is not the same as being with someone in person. We are unanimous in our anticipation of the state reopening next Friday. It won’t be a normal opening, but it will be better than the SIP.

I just read a piece about the various epidemics we have been through and how several of them had death tolls of 100,000 with a hundred million fewer people in the country. Yet, the country was never shut down. Now that COVID-19 is being defined and examined for what its is, the Monday Morning Quarterbacks are all jumping on the pile to cry “we didn’t need to shut down.” That is easy to say now that the facts are known. Where were these same people in February when it all began and nothing was known? I’ll tell you where they were. They were panicking because they didn’t have enough ventilators, or hospital beds, or personal protective gear. It is all we heard for six weeks. Democrats in particular complained heavily, no I must rephrase that from complained to sobbed dramatically. They didn’t know how to take action until the President showed them things could get done quickly, and he put their fears at ease. After the equipment shortages were taken care of the same people cried about not having testing. That too, was solved in a relative short time, but not by Democrats. after the testing was no longer a crying matter they switched to “we need a vaccine.” That one will take a while. I remember while I was working and I came to my toolmakers with a dicey problem with a ridiculously short timetable they would shake their heads and tell me, “look, the impossible we can do in a short time, but miracles take awhile.” Ninety percent of the time we figured out how to get the job done.

There is no question that COVID-19 will go down in history as a game changer for the world. We will all have to change the way we do things and the way we do business, and the way we treat people. It’ll be fun.

Filed under: Biography, family, Government, health care | Tagged: Covid-19, Hind-Sight | Leave a comment »

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