Further signs of decay

 Up at 2. The internet is crashing, a lot. This is why I've been collecting books that I'll want to read when the internet  finally winks out for good. 

This is why I've been big on not being dependent, ultimately, on even having access to electricity. In the old days, as a kid in Hawaii, we used to have the power go out and we'd not even noticed until it was night-time because during the day we were out doing things, and one can fish, surf, pick shells, etc. completely free of the use of electricity.  If it got dark and there was no juice, we'd just get out the kerosene lamps.

For busking purposes, a wind instrument is great in this way in that you can generally make yourself heard with no amplification. But not only is trumpet just too hard on my system, but it's a bit of a cultural mis-match for Hawaii. There's even a local saying, "No make tun-turrun" which is a direct reference to the sound of a trumpet. I'd say Hawaii, being pretty much a sort of place where the US and Asia shake hands out there in the middle of the Pacific, is the opposite of a place like New Orleans where brashness is encouraged. 

Crime-wise it's close to opposite also. I recently discovered a TV show that's on YouTube that's basically just some cameramen going around with the ambulance services in New Orleans. One night and there's enough crime and gore for an episode. Hawaii's not perfect but for all the stuff I read on r/hawaii on Reddit, the crime rate *is* lower than most of the mainland US. 

I packed a few packages, originally was going to just take FedEx ones, but decided I'd probably just ride to the post office anyway on auto-pilot so I ended up with three of each by the time I had to go, at 6 sharp. 

It was cold and windy of course, and the signals were out at the intersection the post office is on, and the next one too. I just rode halfway up the block then crossed over to the turn-in for Costco and used that to U-turn and got to the post office just fine. 

Coming back, though, I found that the FedEx had closed at 6 or so. And on Friday it will close at 5 so on Friday I'll have to get out of here by 2 or so to make sure. 

I realized I'd risked my life to deliver 3 packages to the post office. This aspect of my work, these bike trips, is not very safe. That's another thing I have to factor in when deciding when to leave. Can I go another 4 years accident-free?

The place where Brokaw Road goes under the freeway is set up sort of like what in motocross is called a "hole shot" where a bunch of riders have to crowd through a bottleneck. That one intersection is the reason why I decided to get a reflective vest. I've developed a few other strategies also, like lagging back and letting all the cars go past so they can fight each other over the bike lane and keep me out of it. Besides the bottleneck aspect of it, the car and bike lanes cross there and that, plus the fact that car drivers hate seeing a bicyclist "ahead" of them, makes for quite a scrum. Fortunately, the green light times are long there so there's actually lots of time to work things out. 

Another thing that's changed is, after 7PM traffic gets less psycho by a level or three, so in the Before Times(tm) I could take off a bit after 7 and be fine because the chute at the post office was reliable, and FedEx was open until something like 10. Now, because of the virus or zombies or something, I have to go out in the worst of the traffic. 

So the 3 FedEx packages are back here now and hopefully will go out Friday. 

At least I got a green bell pepper and two long green peppers out of the dumpster by Grill-'Em and one of the long green ones went into my scrambled eggs in the finest dumpster to table dining.