Who needs social capital?

 348th day sober. I got some practice in last night and I think I was a bit fatigued from the day's playing but I think it's a good habit to be in, to do some relaxed practice and to make sure the horn is swabbed out and clean. 

One thing I'm noticing is all the practice on various flutes to get, gradually, longer notes on them is not resulting in being able to hold longer notes on the trumpet. 

I got up at about 2:30 and of course there's tons of war news on the radio. I have to rant a bit about how horribly Putin is doing things. If he really wants to restore the USSR or something like it, he needs to first create a decent system inside Russia, with national health care, good and inexpensive education, etc. Then ask satellite nations if they want to join up. It's as simple as that. And Russia/the USSR has had tons of "social capital" due to their role in WWII. And now that's all being thrown away. The news on the radio is horrible, of torture and executions and so on of civilians. Even the Nazis had the theoretical framework of Slavic people being "Asiatic" and thus inferior, and even took children they judged to be "Aryan" among the Slavic population back to Germany to raise as German - like a guy I knew back in Hawaii. But the Ukrainians and the Russians are pretty much the same people. It's as stupid and corrosive as the policies of many Republican politicians, who are calling for the extermination of "all Democrats" here. 

Interestingly, it's exactly those same Republican politicians who think Putin's a great guy. 

Also interestingly and a change of subject: I looked for interesting global warming videos last night and didn't find much I hadn't already seen, but I saw plenty of material from Islamic YouTubers. So, in contrast to the official Christian view that global warming isn't real or is even a hoax, the Islamic world has been actually paying attention to science. I guess I should not be surprised, as the Islamic world also believes in actual charity while Christians have decided charity's for suckers. 

I've believed for a while now that if you're a poor person in the US, because religion allows for at least some holidays and some excuses to get together with others, it's in your best interest to become very religious. And of the two major religions around here, Islam is by far a better choice than Christianity. "Fellow" Christians will step over your starving body in the street on their way to a night club, while charity is one of the Pillars Of Islam. I'm not about to follow Islam, myself, but it's by far the better choice of the two. 

I got 10 things packed and didn't need the bike trailer so I just carried them in Whole Foods bags and ran the things up to the post office, then shopped at 99 Ranch, only getting some pork pate' for myself and 5 packages of "peppered beef" instant ramen for Ken because I kind of screwed up and 5 of the packs I've already bought for him are pork. 

On the way back I dropped off the two FedEx packages and shopped at H Mart, noticing there are two more flavors of beef instant ramen that aren't in this batch. You really want a Korean market for beef flavored things. 

I've told Ken the stuff's not healthy but if he wants ramen, I'll get him ramen. I think he's fallen into the trap I did, where you've for Asian co-workers and they're eating ramen every day that's generally some off-the-wall flavor, spicy as hell, and comes in a package that looks like a UFO. So you figure this can't be unhealthy, they eat it and they're fairly trim. But I wonder what they look like now. 

All I got at H Mart was some salmon sashimi that was about a buck less than I'd spend on a burger, and some gum. I ate the salmon out front (there's a bench there) and my next stop was the storage place. 

I had a devil of a time finding the unit! I went around and around in the building, and finally figured out it's right by the elevator. I won't forget where that one is now. Ken has it stuffed full of stuff all right, but a lot less of it is "treasure" like small parts, test leads and probes, that kind of thing, than I hoped. I picked out some stuff to list tomorrow night and got out of there. At the gate there was a guy who I think is the owner, messing around with the gate. He's gotten older and fatter over the last 10 years. We talked a bit and I was off for home. 

I stopped at Tom's but he wasn't awake, or was off somewhere with his homeless buddy or something. Or getting his bender on early, in any case he didn't answer the door. 

So I got back here, where it's really nice and quiet. There's a zombie car ditched in the parking lot out by the entrance to the complex. In fact, due to its flat grey paint job I halfway think it might be one of Crazy Chrissie's crappy cars. Last night some zombies came along in a van, stopped by it, then backed up all the way to back here, then forward again, then had a fun hour or so milling around the car with flashlights, then finally took off.