Happy Birthday To Me...

 After listing 20 things on Ebay last night, I just played the shinobue a bit and decided to go right to bed, with the idea of getting up at about 1, and doing my planned visit to Central Computers to get some canned air to clean out my printer, and a bunch of other things I'd planned. 

I actually got up at 2:30 and decided I had time. And, I did. I left at a quarter after 3 and went to Whole Foods for a bottle of coffee, use the loo, and get $100 cash back. 

Then I rode for Central Computers on Stevens Creek, which was a bit of a slog being both very mildly uphill and upwind. I got there in plenty of time. They had canned air (expensive now) but they don't sell printer toners, and they had a lot of other interesting computer stuff. Kind of like Fry's in their heyday. Great place. 

Next I went to Starving Musician and looked around just for old times' sake. Interestingly, they had about 4 of the same Schilke trumpet mouthpiece I have, so someone must be promoting it as a good one. *I* think it is, but I figured it was as far as a teacher would go to put their student on a 3C rather than the universal 7C. 

Then I rode on the sidewalk up the other side of Stevens Creek and found Hamilton Euromarket right there. I looked all through it but most of what they had are a no-no on my diet. I ended up getting a small tub of black olives and a piece of smoked ham sort of like prosciutto.  Those cost me about $30 though. 

Next I backtracked and rode over to Mitsuwa Marketplace. I got a little plate of sushi for about $11 and ate that, including almost all of the rice which is not a good thing to do on my diet. Then I went in and looked around the book store, looked at the Genki Japaneses language learning books, and finally bought a fine ballpoint pen that writes really well for $4, for my tax forms and also for Customs forms. 

I went through the market and ended up getting some Xylitol gum on sale and a box of Hoy Hoy roach traps because warm weather is coming, and they were a couple dollars less than I'm using to paying. 

I rode back and had time to go to Stevens Creek Surplus because I thought they might have some of those wool "commando sweaters" and they do, but they're very expensive - like $50-$80 expensive. There was one that was $30 but I decided to skip it. 

Next I stopped at Big-5 and amazingly, they had the Coleman "North Fork" sleeping bag in stock. So I got one, saving be damned. I decided on the ride home that I'll stow it away in the loft and toss the one I'm using now and get the new one out on my birthday in September. That day will mark only one more year until I can leave for home.  My system is, I get a sleeping bag and sleep in it for a year or two and then when it gets funky, time for a new one. I've generally able to get a new one for $30 or $40. This one was $49 c'est la guerre and all that.

I found a few books on the way back and that was about it. It was sunny but cold with a cold wind. It struck me that the busking might be rather good around Santana Row, at least at one of those corners where masses of people wait for the light to change, and that would be on public, non-Santana Row property. But even with the trumpet, I'd not dream of doing it now, it was too cold and windy out there. The busking season is really only half the year here. I was out until something like 8 tonight, the equivalent of being out until 11 in the before times.

I got back and had ham and olives and the rest of the bottle of coffee and tea, and looked at the latest news online. I'd been thinking while out riding that I ought to look up life expectancy in the US by income quintile and there *is* a correlation with the poorest living the shortest lives. My parents, having died in their early 60s, would have been off the left side of the cute little chart. 

In fact, when I hit age 52, I figured "Well, here goes; I've got 10 years left". But later I found my aunt on my mother's die was still alive, my mother's sister. In her 90s and sitting on her millions like Smaug the evil dragon and brimming with vim, vigor, and nastiness. And my uncle on my father's side, my father's brother, made it to his late 70s before he kicked off. He was fond of quoting Ayn Rand so he left the world a better place. But the point is, I should be on my last 2-3 years of life if I'm just looking at my parents, but looking at relatives, I can expect to make at least another 10 years, to age 70, with a good chance of making it to 75 or 80. 

I also, as a good reader of r/collapse, actually read the post about how the latest IPCC report/NASA report has us with a 10 degrees C. heating of the Earth "baked in". In other words, even if we do nothing, absolutely nothing. Even if all we evil humans were to suddenly die, or sit and photosynthesize like plants, or hop a bus to Mars, or anything, 10C is our future. Not 1.5, not 3, but a terrifying 10 degrees C warming and I believe this is by the end of the century which means by 2050 it should be quite horrible. 

Well, I return home in 2024, and living to 2030 ought to not take much effort, but if I live to be 75 or 80, I can expect to see 2040 anyway, and that might be bad enough. The thing I've been seeing over these last few years, though, is that the equator or near it might be the best place to be. People are hearing about global warming and thinking they should head North or South, and those are exactly the places that are getting insane heat, firestorms, huge floods, all sorts of problems. Meanwhile back in Hawaii people are talking about things like, "Too bad the Leonard's truck doesn't come out to X any more" and such minor things. 

And yes people are leaving Hawaii, and California, and other smart places. And moving to stupid places like Texas and Florida, and yes, Louisiana. That last is one of the states where the male life expectancy is below age 70. At or less than full retirement age. And falling. It will get interesting when the life expectancy is less than age 62, which it will fall to in a few years. 

Myself being in the lowest quintile, I should expect to die by 70 or so, but although income-wise I am poor, there are things people in the lowest quintile love to do, consider essential to a proper life, that I do not engage in. Things like going in and out of jail/prison, being covered with tattoos, smoking cigarettes and anything else that can possibly be lit and inhaled, casual violence, and eating an utterly horrible diet. I may be poor but I'm not that kind of poor. 

My poor is much more like that of Japanese people in Hawaii who were poor but would save money, plan for the future, and to whom things like having tattoos, taking drugs, and engaging in any kind of crime whatsoever is a deep, deep shame. Those folks are a big factor in why Hawaii has the highest life expectancy of the US states.