Crappy air

 I noticed last night that there's a sort of haze in the air that's considerable. Not quite a fog. but pretty heavy. I checked www.purpleair.org and the air around this area is all orange/red so it's pretty bad. I'm one of those people who doesn't "feel" bad air at all, even when it's physically very evident. I wonder if living in Hawaii until my mid-20s gave me a good start with much cleaner lungs than the average American? Because while no one talks about it, the air quality and water quality on the mainland are awful. 

My two beers and munchies gave me a nice glow, and a few hours later I was completely sober again so it went as planned. Mainly I didn't want to be temped to do some work-related stuff as it was the weekend. But it was $5 I didn't need to spend, and mental discipline and hot tea would have done about the same. 

I practiced last night, mainly just the tone exercises and the little thing at the bottom of the page, teaching the note Bb, that's always been tricky. My tone actually sounds pretty good, and I think part of this is an exercise I've been doing. Whenever I think about it, I take a few deep breaths, blowing out like I'm playing a flute, and I mean the deepest breaths I can take. 

The breathing is so different between flute and trumpet, being based on volume where trumpet is based on pressure. In trumpet, breathing too deeply is a mistake, where in flute you really can't breathe too deeply. Flute instructors encourage their students to take singing lessons on the side, and flute playing seems to strengthen the voice. Trumpet instructors don't talk about this, and if you tried being a singer who breathes like a trumpet player, you'd sound awful. 

I went outside to put some stuff out for the bums, and the air smelled/felt "burned" so I checked www.purpleair.org ("It's a dot com!" - Homestar Runner) and the air quality is solidly in the red, 150s and 160s. Out of curiosity, I checked the air in Honolulu and it's ... a 2, a 3, and a 6 in the "industrial" area. Bright green. 

This is one of the many reasons, while I'm kind of leading Ken on, talking about maybe staying another year or two, I really want to be out of here ASAP. The P being decided by how soon I can get Social Security, which is at age 62, in late 2024. 

There are things that might happen to make me leave sooner, so I have to be prepared in case those conditions exist. One is if Ken dies or becomes too disabled to run this business. Another is if some weird political coup happens because the right wing doesn't feel like waiting around until 2024. Another possibility is I get offered a place over there, which may happen. It's not highly likely, and I'm not big on trusting others with my fate, but it is on the table. 

So what else is new ... there's a big discussion on Reddit about how to clean up the zombies downtown. If Gavin Newsom can get up his camps and get the more zombified and dangerous ones off the street, he might ride that all the way to a Presidency. It's a big reason why I want to stick around to vote in 2024, if there's an election. 

What is in the way of solving the homeless problem is capitalism. It requires a "submerged" and miserable bottom 10% or so. And it required this impoverished portion of the populace to be right in among everyone else, otherwise their function in capitalism, to keep wages down and to scare the workers, is negated. So capitalism dictates they be around, in quantity, and continually committing crimes and crapping up the place. If Newsom can even mitigate that a bit, it will be huge. 

And Trump and company are going through their continual legal troubles. Sedition and insurrection, crimes that the rulebook prescribe the death penalty for, are not being punished. There should have been summary executions on the White House lawn. 

I fully expect the Dump to be put into a "country club" prison for 5 years, along with a few of his closest cronies, one of whom will be a fairly capable writer. The Dump will write a screed which the talented writer will turn into a book. It will have a long, clumsy title something like, "My Struggle Against Namby-Pamby-Lib'ruls And Girly-Men, Oh Yeah, And The Jews". The publishing house will, with some effort, get the Orange Blob to go with a shorter title, something like, "My Fight".