No rain in Spain, especially not on the plain

 

There's only so large I'm allowed to make this ... 

But it's a map of Spain, Portugal, the Straits of Gibralter, and associated areas. 40C is something like 120F. 

I may also have to do today's post all as part of the caption, center-justified, because of the limits of Blogger, a very limited program (except for all the others, which don't exist). 

I post this map because it's only April, and on places like www.reddit.com/r/AmerExit which is dedicated to ways people in the US can escape the US, Portugal is much-cited as a fairly affordable way to get into Europe. 

If it gets up into 120F in April, who knows how horrible this summer will be. 120F is Israel temperatures, yes, one thing that's not mentioned much about "making Aliyah" or moving / "returning" to Israel as a Jew, is that the place gets super hot.

I noticed a summer or two ago that the Earth's temperatures might be imagined, North to South, like a boat.  People who go on cruises and are prone to seasickness are advised to get a berth near the center line of the ship, as there's the least movement up and down as the ship bobs around and does its thing. Likewise, I've seen - vicariously thank goodness - some wild heat fluctuations over the last few years, all in areas distant from the equator. 

There were crazy wildfires in Australia, the more populated parts of Australia being the Southern, more temperate, areas. There was the "heat dome" over the Pacific Northwest, and some years earlier than that, a crazy hurricane, named Sandy, up in the New York City area. 

Meanwhile, on r/hawaii, I'm seeing complaints about a lot of things (mostly homeless bums and "mainland" behavior like gun violence) but nothing about temperatures. Not cold, not heat, nothing. Therefore I conclude that the equator, with respect to temperature swings, is like the center line of the ship. 

Now, if things get so hot overall that even on the equator it becomes difficult to live, then that's the end game. By then the parts of the Earth further North and South will be unlivable.

People don't seem to realize that they can move to, say, Newfoundland or Iceland or Greenland, and as temps get warmer, it will suddenly be a nice, say New Jersey or Carolinas climate there. It will pass through that kind of climate more often within the wide temperature swings, but that's what's gonna get ya: the wide temperature swings. 

As a wise person put it, we humans may be a very adaptable species, but the plants and animals we depend on are not. Not only will the wide temperature swings confuse the hell out of the plants, canceling a lot of harvests, but the other mistake people make is to think that just because they move to Greenland, the Sun itself will cater to them personally by changing the very angle of itself to the Earth. They assume there will be the same amount of direct sun making for good growing as you get in, say, Georgia. (Either Georgia will do.) 

Instead, now, it's going to be the same weak, slanting sun there is there now, the Sun will not change its angle just to accommodate the whims of American Boomers. So the sun will be weak and slanting as always, plus the wild temperature swings. 

I'm not saying the band of say 20 degrees North and South of the equator will be a way out of doom I'm just saying it will be the driest place on the lifeboat before the whole thing sinks. 

 

And sink it will, whether in 10 years or 100, it will. Temperatures high enough to cook all life on earth other than some single-celled organisms and perhaps some of the life forms adapted to live off of deep undersea vents, is already "baked in". 

 

And if we suddenly went to zero emissions, all the smokestacks suddenly stopped smoking, then the McPherson Paradox would kill us even faster. The McPherson Paradox is another thing that's ignored by almost everyone. The smog in the air actually keeps the Earth from heating up by blocking sunlight. Make the air crystal-clear and we cook extra fast and it happens within weeks. 

 

It's all very cheerful, isn't it? I just want to go home where my memories are, and live whatever years I have left. "When the world is running down, you make the best of what's still around" - some musical guy. 

 

I wasn't going to go anywhere today but was going to rest my back by staying in bed and getting back to work reading "Angry White Pyjamas", a book by an English guy who, with two buddies, goes through a sort of "combat Aikido"  course that's taught to the Tokyo riot police, but that civilians can go through also. I'd read about 1/3 of the way through and then dropped it, so I'm starting from the beginning again. 

I woke up at around 3:30, thought that's OK because if this were a bank day I'd have time to be "out the door by 4" which is the correct way to do it because it rhymes. But it not being a bank day, I got up anyway and had my black coffee and Lipovitan and aspirin. My back still hurts but maybe hurts a bit less and being a restless sort  of person I guess, I decided I'd go out. 

I gathered up trash, and books and things to donate, and put together my pledge for the temple for May, so I had a few useful things to do. I took off a bit after 5, dropped off the trash in a trash can on Taylor, went by the temple and dropped off my pledge, then went to the little free library there in Japantown and dropped off the other stuff. 

Then I went to Nijiya and got a can of Dutour coffee which I put on my card and got $40 cash back. This works out perfectly, $100 of my last check staying in the bank, some going into savings around here, and my spending just the right amount. I was "allowed" to take out about $43 more, and Dotours are pretty cheap at Nijiya, only something like $2.25. 

After buying the coffee I put it in my bike bag and went back in and got an unagi don, what the hell, life is short. I got talking with the tall white guy who knows some Japanese, who was talking about his wife doing some Japanese traditional dancing. I asked if she was involved with the flute playing and taiko drumming I'd heard yesterday, and he said no, but somehow it came out that they're moving to Henderson, Nevada and will be gone in a couple of weeks. 

I said it's a popular thing, that there are a lot of people moving there etc. He liked that there are a lot of seniors' activities, and I agreed, and said my boss's daughter had moved to Nevada and she's only in "her high 40s I think".

I kept it to myself that it's idiotic to move to a place where the stupid is so concentrated as Nevada or any of the other stupid-rich places people are moving like Florida and Texas. Why doesn't this guy bugger off to Japan? If he's got a Japanese wife and knows some of the language, it being so much cheaper there to live, why Nevada? 

I ate my unagi don out front, enjoying the nice if a bit windy weather and the people walking around. It was nothing like yesterday but there were a lot of people around and lots of kids. The unagi don was even really good, with a higher quality of unagi than I usually find in ready-made bentos.

I decided to ride downtown and look around, maybe see how the "SoFa Street Fair" is going. I wandered over there and it's both crowded and loud. I don't mind so much if the loudness is actual good music, but these were just 2nd rate cover bands by the sound of them, trying out their "original" (not very original) material. It was pretty Meh and the line to use the bathroom was long so I just turned around and called it a day. 

I wandered home, taking a street over from my usual streets, hoping as Sunday is a day people put things out, that I might find some old (but clean) T-shirts to clean my bike with. I didn't find any but I found a nice mug and a blower fan. 

 I got back here tested the blower - it works. I washed the mug and found it holds a bit more than my old one. The new one was apparently a souvenir, and say's Cars Land on it, with tons of little pictures of the cars/characters from the movie Cars. It's actually pretty cool, as much as I hate cars I like that movie. 

On my way home I'd also stopped at a dumpster I haven't stopped at for a long time because I usually don't find much but this time around I got green beans and some of those little red super hot peppers. I cut up the beans and made a dressing and put the bean salad in the fridge for later. Then I got to work making some home-made chili oil. I washed and cut up the chilis, dried them a bit, and took a mix of peanut and sesame seed oil and simmered them in the oil along with some garlic flakes, until it seemed like it was infused with the flavor OK, then ran it through a coffee filter into the bottle the peanut oil was in. Now I just have to get some gyoza and try this oil out. 

Dinner was some corned beef and the bean salad. The salad was a bit fibrous, in other words, just right. I'm reminded of an episode of Sponge Bob, where Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy have fallen under some kind of a spell due to eating the competition's burgers. Spongebob stuffs a Krabby Patty burger in each of them and then waits, dumbfounded, waiting for it to work. "Oh yeah!", he exclaims, "They're old! They need fiber!" So he tips a good amount of stuff marked "Fiber" into each of them, and then the cure works. 

The main thing is, the idea of taking stuff out of a dumpster and eating it, doing things with it, was utterly foreign to me in my 20s, back in the 80s. And it was a social disaster that one side of the First Insurance building in Honolulu looked out over, among other things, a really great Goodwill that I discovered and started shopping at. Nowadays, I'd gain points with co-workers for finding cool clothes there, but at time, I lost a ton of points. At least now it's cool to bargain-hunt and scrounge. 

So much for the book hustle

 I practiced last night, working on "Sakura" on the shinobue and the usual things on the shakuhachi. Then the deep breathing involved made me sleepy as usual and I went to bed. 

I got up around 2. I woke up about 3 times to pee so near-beer, even without alcohol, has something in it that makes a person have to pee a lot. 

I had two bags of books to take to the used book store. Last time I'd gotten maybe $12 I think, but this time would be better, I was sure. This time I'd get at least $15, maybe $20, and perhaps more than that. I got $6. 

$6! I could make that much going and and playing one of my flutes, even if I sound like crap, in an hour or less. And it's a lot less hauling heavy things around. Plus my back hurts like hell and lifting heavy bags of books sure didn't help. 

So I am quitting the book hustle. I'll still pick up books I want to read and put back, and even then I've got several to read right now. 

I took the $6 and the bags of unsold books and dropped them off in front of the "Mexican" library because someone will want them. I headed over to Central Cash & Carry because I wanted to look around in there but they were closed and had signs up saying they're closed and moving to a new location. 

I turned around and went to Walmart, locking my bike up at the Big-5 as usual. I had $26 to spend and I think I spent it pretty wisely, on paper towels, sardines, Parmesan cheese, and some kind of giant Slim Jim that was $3. It all came to $21 and change, plus I found a bit over a dollar in change in the Coinstar, although no silver and the only interesting coin being a British 5 Pence. 

I was both hungry and thirsty and headed back to Japantown which was hopping. No festival or activity going on either, there were just a lot of people and a lot of kids. Lots of kids is a good thing for a busker. If I were just a bit more practiced-up, I could play a few songs on the shinobue (which can be heard across the street) and I might have made "bank". 

I went into Nijiya and got a Coke Zero and some fried octopus, which was OK. The little guys actually had a nice texture. Then I looked around a little, and then sat on a bench has finished the Coke Zero and had the Slim Jim. I'd have been better off just having that, without spending $6 on the octopus. 

It was really nice, seeing all the people around, and I had a nice time talking with a young couple who had a small kid when I was sharing a table with them. I told them about some good places to go for take-out food and mochi/manju, and a bit of the history of the place like when the Japanese had come, how they'd been treated when WWII started, and how almost none of them got their land back, like the people who started Santo Market. 

On my way out, I'd heard what sounded like taiko drums and a shinobue being played by the temple, so on my way back I looked around but didn't see anything. I asked some people sitting by the front of the temple gym if they knew anything, and they didn't but they were curious about the shakuhachi so I told them how to get started on that. We had a good old time talking. 

Now it really was time to get back here so I did. The reason I wanted to charge out and do things today is, the book store is open on Saturday but not Sunday for book-buying. And Central Cash & Carry is closed on Sundays. 

I'm not doing any more book selling, and Central Cash & Carry is surely moving further out from downtown where it will be cheaper for them. I might check out a place called Evershing Trading that's not about to move so I want to check them out now. 

Since it's supposed to rain on Monday or Tuesday, which might linger into Wednesday, I kind of want to (although my back sure doesn't want to!) go out tomorrow to check out Marukai Market and also if I can get going early enough, the Cupertino cherry blossom festival. 

In other news, Craig's List has become an utter cesspool. It's hard as hell to get to to show the things other than the "weekend newspaper supplement thrown on the floor" appearance, and when I finally figured that out, I found idiotic things like garage sales from a month ago (I was searching "bamboo flute"). 

It's no wonder nothing's selling. Since I've sold a total of $30 out of all the things I've listed on Craig's List, I might bother to keep renewing the ads or I might just decide it's not even worth that minimal amount of time and delete the remaining listings and give away the stuff. 

Given I've made $30 over a month of listing on Craig's List, I can simply go out busking with a flute or two and come out far ahead. 

Fortunately of the things I still have on there, none of them cost me anything. Of the things I want to list that I've not listed yet, that I actually paid money for, I'm pretty sure I can sell those things to Ken over the next year and two-thirds. Between him and his daughter, they'll want the things which consist of guns, knives, tools, and a scanner radio. And I'll have a ton of stuff to simply give away of course. 

Bye bye trumpet

 I woke up with enough time to have my now customary coffee and aspirin and clean up a bit and head out for the day at a bit before 4. 

I dropped off trash, dropped off packages at the downtown post office, and went to the bank. They seem to think I have more money than I thought I did, but I think I wrote down a cash purchase as something I used my card for. The IRS hasn't cashed my check yet. 

Instead of going to Whole Foods, I just went over to the Amazon place for bubble mailers, found a couple of books from the little free libraries, and went to Japantown and locked the bike up. 

First I went into Hukilau because I really had to use the bathroom, and paid for a club soda (they didn't have any near beer) and re-hydrated a bit. 

Then I went over to Nikkei Traditions and tried on one of the aloha shirts they had there. They'd just gotten a bunch in and I know they only re-stock every few years so what there is, there is. The first one I tried felt too big so I put it back. There was one with surfboards on it and I noticed that by lining up the sleeves I could tell it was a bit smaller so I tried it on and it felt OK. So I got it, and a genuine Reyn Spooner is $130 these days. 

I went over to Nijiya and got a sushi plate and some cucumbers and such things, then went over to TAK Market for some near-beer, and came back here to put things away. 

Might as well check the medical place, I decided, and put the trailer on the bike with my big orange bin, the step stool,  my "reacher" stick etc. I picked up some trash around here and put it in the bin and went around to the other side of the complex and dumped my finds in the dumpster there. 

Next was the veggie place. The step stool came in handy as I got a big bag of white onions and I also found a few goodies at the medical place. 

I went around to Tom's and it was funny, because I saw Tom outside doing something with his shirt off, and as I came up from the corner he went inside, shut the door, and didn't some out when I knocked. I put the bag of onions on the table there and took out 3 for myself, and talked with Colin for a bit. No, Tom's not mad at me, but his wife's here, I was informed. Well, OK then, have some onions, guys.

I went to the computer place and didn't find much of anything but some nice bags to put things in, plus I used cut-up cardboard to scoop up general junk around there and put it in this other dumpster that never gets more than a single bag in it, so it was a nice feeling having done that.

I got back here and, finally, had my sushi and some near-beer. The guy at the temple who had told me money's too tight to consider buying my trumpet, sent me emails and we went back and forth and he came over and bought it. I'd wanted $1200, and he said he could do $1100 and I said that was OK but in reality he brought over $1144, "all I can do" so that was a nice surprise also. 

Plus I was wearing my new shirt and didn't get any comments like "New shirt, eh?" so that tells me it probably looks fairly natural on me. I need to get one more so I'll have one to wash and one to wear, but I recently realized that if I get them now and wear them routinely, they'll be nicely worn-in when I go back to Hawaii.

Born A Crime

  - That book, by Trevor Noah, is excellent. There are books that stay with you, and this is one of them. 

After all the things I did yesterday, I took today kind of off, and stayed in bed until a bit past 6, reading the rest of this book. 

Of course I practiced, shinobue and "Danny Boy", Twinkle" and "Frere Jacques" and trying to get all the notes sounding clear and strong. I remember when I first got this little shinobue and I was struggling to get the higher octave notes on the higher notes and now they're all old hat. So my breath has gotten stronger. 

Then shakuhachi, lots of long tones and the usual tunes. 

 

Danny Boy

 I took apart a piece of equipment that was DOA so now I have some pretty decent parts to list on Ebay. I practiced shakuhachi and shinobue both, and was happy to find that playing "Danny Boy" isn't hard on the shinobue at all. I'm greatly heartened by this, as it's such an excellent busking song, flute is a traditional instrument for it, and it's quite acceptable, even preferred, for it to have a "rustic" sound to it. 

If I can come up with a handful of tunes, say Amazing Grace, Danny Boy, Aura Lee, Nori No Miyama just to mix it up, a few others, I might actually think about doing some busking this weekend. 

That was last night. I woke up at 3. I had my usual coffee and a Lipovitan and aspirin, and packed all the things that were paid for and could be shipped. The drop-off at the post office went fine and so did the one at FedEx, and I checked behind H Mart for any "specials" - today's was 11 packages of 3 packs each of toasted seaweed with grape seed oil. I love that stuff! That's about $60 worth. 

I stopped by the EMT training place and got some finger cots, and checked the Hyndai dumpster and wow, they'd thrown out tons and tons of manuals. 

I hurried back with my stuff, dropped it off, and went back with two large boxes and filled 'em up, came back here to drop those off, and went back with one large box and also had noticed the boxes the manuals were there, flattened out but easily taped back up. I ended up with a huge, heavy load but avoided a 3rd trip. 

On my way back with this huge load I stopped by Tom's to drop off some fresh broccoli and a pair of shorts that might fit Tom. I have a bag of shorts that someone had laundered, folded neatly, then left by the dumpster on the other side of this complex months and months ago. Among others I had three pairs of Quicksilver shorts made of the same stuff as sweat pants, labeled Small but a bit big on me, and might fit Tom just fine. So I'm giving Tom, or Colin if Tom doesn't want them, the grey pair. 

Colin was there and I think Tom was too but he didn't come out. I asked Colin how the trip to the gym yesterday had gone and he said, "I got clean" - Tom just uses the gym to shower occasionally. I joshed that the mean ol' brandy bottle might have gotten Tom again, and as I write I'm thinking this might be why Tom likes to have Colin around, as Colin doesn't drink. 

I got back here, put my haul away, had something to eat, and cleaned the place up for Ken's visit. Ken was right on time, and I helped him unload things. Ken's legs are still wobbly and I'm walking funny due to my sore back, what a pair we make. 

Ken brought in a ton of stuff to list and I showed him all the manuals I'd picked up and how I'd re-arranged the office although frankly it was hard to notice with my pile of boxes of manuals and the stuff brought in to list. 

Ken and I hung out and talked about the usual things, and I showed him 3 equipment cases I'd been trying to sell on Craig's List and said he could have all three for $100 and he didn't say a word, just wrote out another check. 

Ken says he thinks the problem with his legs might be long covid, as he'd had covid. I'd forgotten he'd tested positive, felt lousy, and taken a week or two off, back there somewhere in these strange new times. In my own case I've not gotten so much as a sniffle for three years, have had 5 covid shots, and have no idea if I've had covid which I could have had, asymptomatically. I'm pretty sure I'm either one of those people who can get covid and not even notice, or I've been extremely lucky and just not gotten it. 

But if Ken's got long covid, that could throw a new wrinkle into things. Probably accelerate his schedule to take it easy and retire. But then, with my own schedule under two years and shrinking, there's less and less that can happen with Ken to influence my own plans. 

Good Old Cheap Ol' Dai Thanh

 I had time to pack 8 things, and was considering doing a combination of taking some things to the FedEx on the Alameda and taking used books to the book store to cash in. I'd even woken up early enough, at around 2:30. 

I'd practiced a bit last night. That old trouble again, that the deep breathing used in playing is the same or at least close to the technique I use to go to sleep. The good part is I can be asleep inside of 10 minutes, often inside of 5. The irksome thing is practice makes me sleepy. 

I finally decided to just take some post office and some FedEx stuff with me and to go up to Dai Thanh. I left at 5, dropped off the FedEx things first, then went to 99 Ranch where I got some dim sum, three for $4.50 where it used to be something like 3 for $3. It was decent, sure not keto though. 

Then since I had so much time left, rode on up to Dai Thanh. I found some beef to buy, a bit over a lb, for about $7, and a big bag of shrimp for about the same. Deal! I got some angel wing/elephant ear cookies and some made of the same stuff but not looped around but with raisins because they reminded me of the kind of cookies my father used to always buy and we'd eat when we went to Kahana Bay when I was little. 

(Dad loved Kahana Bay and loved to walk down to the end, I guess the Southern end, of the beach where few people went and where there were always these little white clam shells, delicate and translucent and really too nice to be called a crude name like "clam shells". You had to duck under lots of tree branches which is why few people went to that end. Kahana Bay is not *that* magic, the sand's too fine and gets everywhere and the water is always full of itchy stuff and is brown and the waves are too weak to surf but Dad never thought about those practical things. To him it was a magical place and I can hardly wait to visit it again now.)

Shopping done, I stopped by the post office to drop off my small packages there, then stopped by the back of H Mart to see if anything interesting was being tossed out. There were lots of things but they were either candy or other things I should not eat, or sweet potatoes that Tom likes but I want to leave some for someone else, and ultimately I just picked out a package of kim chee gyoza to try, for myself. 

I rode back here and put things away and put the trailer on the bike and first picked up all but two cans (one was rusty and one had lard(?) on it) of food from the latest food drop, and took that stuff up to Tom's and stacked it all on the table in front of his place. Colin was there and said Tom's resting 'cos they're going to the gym later. I told him there's a can of black beans in the bunch and a jar of peanut butter that's not full of hydrogenated oils. 

Leaving Tom's, I remembered why I wanted to go there - not just to drop things off but to pick up boxes from the Imperfect Foods place. For some reason, the large boxes they toss out are really useful and I use them all the time. So I went over there and picked up four of them, then rode for home, going good and fast so the zombies on Rogers wouldn't bother me, and got back and put things away. 

Thanks to Dai Thanh I got shrimp and beef for less than $2 a serving, and I picked up a big head of broccoli from the veggie dumpster tonight also. Cooking at home is great. 

I need to continue to be more frugal as I prepare for retirement. A lot of it is going back to how I grew up. Like who could ever afford a prepared sandwich from the deli at the supermarket? I'm not sure I was aware such things existed. But I could buy a package or two of Leo's lunch meat at 75c a package and a soda and there was a meal that would hold me a while. These days, two tea eggs for $3 and a can of coffee for $1.50 is a workable meal. Or a "bong" fish sausage and a soda. Or a piece of fried chicken and a soda. 

Sadly, I may not be doing nearly as much home cooking when I'm first back in Hawaii. But being such an Asian-culture place, there a whole sort of sub-economy of small, single-serving things and the 7-11's there, if not as good as the ones in Japan, are a few levels above the ones here on the mainland. 

I cut up the beef and portioned out the beef and shrimp and put them in the freezer, and dinner was the kim chee gyoza with pork, garlic, and ginger. It was really good!

Oh my aching back

 Last night I emptied out this sort of government-office-quality shelf thing (that has drawers and these pull out covers for all but the top level) and moved a bunch of things, including some heavy-ass transformers, and moved the file cabinet Ken had just brought in to change places with the shelf thing. I also defrosted the freezer which really needed it, cleaned everything, and took the big boxes of drone parts out from under the work bench, put the drone parts in the file cabinet, all cleaned out and labeled, cut up the boxes the drone parts had been in, and moved these large/heavy-ish Philips pulse generators under the work bench where the drone parts had been. 

This is why I popped about $10 on a carton of Key coffee and some half-and-half. I drank it in breaks. 

Once I was done it was about 4AM and read a bit more of Trevor Noah's book and went to sleep, the kind of sleep where when I woke up I had to remember what I'd done the night before and why my back hurt like hell. 

I had time to pack 15 things and did my usual post office and FedEx run. I stopped at the "Krispy" chicken place and got two thighs to go, and for some reason they charged me the old price, about $6.50 instead of the new one, about $8.50. That was nice. Then I did the ever-popular San Jose thing of trying to eat my food before the End Times wind blows it away. 

I stopped by Tom's to drop off some cooked sweet potatoes and corn on the cob I'd picked up behind H Mart, and we hung out and talked for a bit. No, he hadn't gone to the matsuri, Yes he'd gone up into the mountains and gotten his truck welded on, and things are looking dire for our friend up in the mountains, because he's in all kinds of trouble for polluting the little stream that runs through his land, and he may not only lose his land but do prison time. 

Probably the only way to live on that piece of land completely legally would be to build one's house a good distance away from the stream, and to have a system for taking "grey water" and worse things off-site for disposal. And about the guy's dogs, pissing and crapping all over as dogs do, I don't even know the answer. 

The guy's a nice guy but a real slob so he's probably going to crash and burn. He's harmless but will come off like Charles Manson in court. Plus, like the owner of the Gilroy place I lived on for a while, he's one of those "sovereign citizen" types. Like the Gilroy guy, he's almost got a policy of seeing how much he can annoy neighbors and the government he can before they are driven to swat at him like an annoying fly, and then cry, "Oh, poor persecuted me". 

Tom also told me he's realized all the peanut butter I've brought him is unhealthy due to having hydrogenated oil in it, so I told him to load it onto the bike trailer and I'll find a home for it. In reality, when I left, I just rode what's really just around the corner and left the jars of peanut butter on the sidewalk in front of a place where anyone spotting it will have an easy time pulling off of the road to get it. 

I got back here and took some stuff I wanted to throw away over to the FedEx dumpster and there was that weirdo with a dog in his SUV, no badge or identifying markings, yet who claims to be "security". I think he's probably a druggie, maybe even a worker there at that FedEx facility, who slings a little meth on the side. "Security" is just protective coloration. He'd lurk around to sell his wares not only to late-night workers but also the druggies along Rogers Avenue. In any case, I'd just finished dumping the stuff, said out loud so he'd be sure to hear, "There's Mr. Druggie again" and took off. 

I got back in here and dug out Ebay things that had sold and packed a couple of things I wanted to make sure to pack, and fixed up some dinner which was beef and veggies with 1/3 of a jar of "Kashmiri Curry Simmer Sauce" that had been in one of the food drops. It's very mild and a bit tomato-y but one of the veggies was half a large hot pepper (the non-rotten half lol) out of the veggie dumpster and a lot of this "meh" hot sauce from Walmart that I wanted to use up. 

I got emails from the place I'm getting my latest new flute, the size 6 shinobue that's made of some kind of plastic or epoxy and bamboo composite. I was correct in my estimate that it and a little book on shinobue playing would, with shipping, cost me about $75. They told me the final price in yen and I just did the conversion. 

What's nice is after doing all this and once my check to the IRS clears, I'll still have a little over $600 in the bank. Now to try to get it to 10X that by the time I pay the IRS again ... 

 

 

Matsuri Madness

 I practiced shakuhachi some, maybe half an hour but almost all long tones. 

I woke up at 2, and was out of here at 3. I dropped off some trash, and put some books and some reading glasses in the little free library near Japantown. 

Matsuri was on and it was really crowded, with tons of people and I think the whole thing was bigger, with more parts of side-streets taken up with booths and so on. 

The first thing  I did was go to the sort of food court area (there were also some food trucks and some restaurants had specials) and got a serving of 5 pork gyoza for $8. They were delicious, especially since the seasoning packet with them included hot chili oil. They were so good, in fact, that I went back and got a 2nd serving of them. That stand was run by the Buddhist Youth organization or something, so the cost was fine with me. 

I missed the taiko, but there were about 3 other bands playing various things. There were tons of booths with things like jewelry, hats, earrings, all kinds of little knick-knacks that at least the booth owners must think there's some insatiable desire for. 

I got a brush pen with a small and a large side, to practice writing out shakuhachi music, in Kogura Gifts so that was another $6 or so I spent. It's hard to find much to buy when you're planning to leave in less than two years. 

I walked through the whole thing, even checking out the "garage sale" at the museum, and gave up on getting anything from Nijiya as it was packed in there. I went to the N-B store and the lady was happy to see me again, and I asked if Robert was around. She said he has long covid so he's not around much, and I said he'd told me his flute broke and that I can fix it for him, free of charge. I left and note and she said she can text it to him. I think what he has is the black bamboo "fue" told by Taiko Shop, and it's split. I can put a little glue in the crack and put some bindings on it which will make it look cooler and keep it from splitting again. 

I looked at the time and realized it was only 4. So I rode down to The Alameda and got some epoxy glue from the Ace Hardware. Boy is that stuff not cheap any more. But all I have on hand is some J-B Weld that's probably about 15 years old. 

I went to Whole Foods and had a Lagunitas "NA" beer upstairs, which really hit the spot because it was pretty warm today. 

I found a couple of books from the little free libraries, and then rode back to Japantown and wandered around a bit while everyone packed up. I got a carton of Key Coffee and some half and half from Nijiya and rode home here. It was a bit of a slog because the wind was really howling out there and home was upwind. 

There were such crowds, with everyone in such a good mood, that I think I might have done all right busking with the shinobue or the shakuhachi today. It's just that my skills are not up to it yet. So I need to get my skills and endurance up, and I need to get out there. 

Sunny Saturday

I got 15 things ready to list last night but then I'd run out of night so I called it a night. I also practiced shakuhachi, and found that I can play "Edelweiss" with only having to bend one note. 

I woke up around 3 which was perfect since it seems to take me a nice round hour to get going when I start my day. If I have to, I can be from just waking up to out the door in something like 10 minutes but unless it's an extreme hurry like that it always takes me an hour. 

I had a UPS package that had to be taken to the UPS place before it closed at 5, and I had another package I could take without needing the trailer, to take to FedEx. That second one was packed and just needed to have the label printed and applied which I did. 

I left just a bit after 4 with these packages. It feels weird for it to be warm outside. I went to the UPS place and dropped that package off, then FedEx and dropped that one off, then rode up to 99 Ranch. I got two tea eggs and a can of coffee and had my eggs and coffee at one of the tables outside. It was busy because it always is this early on a Sunday and it was nice being among all the people bustling around and the seafood smells. 

Next I went up to Dai Thanh which was busy also. I looked through the whole place, finding interesting things and getting things I needed like a can of chicory coffee and some sriracha sauce and things like that. I looked at a lot of prices too just to keep on top of who charges what for various things. 

I stopped by H Mart on the way back and got some seared ahi sashimi and fish cake and that, with cucumber slices, was my dinner. Yum! 

I was going to stop by Tom's but then I remembered he's up in the mountains getting welding done on his truck. So I just got back here and buttoned up for the day/evening and had my fish and fish cake and cucumbers and so on. 

There's an interesting conversation on Reddit right now. It may have been on r/socialistRA I'm not sure, maybe on r/news. Something about how fear-filled "conservative America" is, and one person said that with some of these people "it's not just fear, they're just bad people". That really got me thinking because then you have to ask, what makes them bad people? It's fear, isn't it? 

There are a tiny portion of people who seem to be born "bad" in that they're psychopaths who don't have empathy. It never got built in. They tend to be bad but mainly they're unfeeling. This is still a tiny part of the populace and does not account for the pervasive, widespread, atmosphere of hatred and distrust in conservative America. The only thing that explains it is fear. Given that this is a very poorly-educated part of the population, they can be led to believe all kinds of crazy things. 

This is why even on Reddit, even among that part of the conservative population that's capable of operating a computer, you'll hear people talking about how they used to believe (or their friends still believe) that Jews have horns hidden under their hair or that their feet are actually chicken feet. And similar idiotic things about all sorts of groups. They believe in the Great Replacement Theory and that a pizza parlor with no basement has a huge basement where Hillary Clinton Herself is torturing children or whatever the latest permutation is. 

You take an ignorant population, then you tell them crazy theories like this, speaking some a position of power like a pulpit or the desk of the police chief or governor's office or what have you. You tell them that only conservative sources of "news" are trustworthy which is how the Nazis did it, telling them to only read Der Sturmer and the Volkischer Beobachter, and in fact to report any fellow Nazis you see reading anything else - they're traitors! 

So you get a fear-cult, that only tolerates staying within the fear-cult. You tell your followers that the coloreds are going to take over, and that the Jews run the banks, and all kinds of crazy things. And you make sure your followers never fraternize with anyone but fellow cult members. 

Let's say you tried to convince the average white American, now, that if they drank from the same water fountain a black person did, their their noses would turn blue and their ears would grow like those of a hound dog. They'd laugh at the idea, say they've been on a sports team with black members or a church group with black members or a summer camp etc. with black members and that was never known to happen. It'd ridiculous! 

But if the conservatives can re-segregate the country, which they're trying to do at present, they might be able to convince the next generation of crazy things like this. Then they can tell them to shoot any black person on sight because you can't have them around, they might drink from a water fountain and some innocent white kid will, and next thing you know their nose will turn blue and their ears grow like a hound dog's... 

And if all this sounds like an extreme level of stupid, welcome to America. 

I still need to do some things to my shinobue - the plastic Aulos one which is pretty horrible looking as it comes out of the box - for which I need to get some epoxy putty and I'm not really ready to try any busking with it yet. But I think I can be ready in time for Obon which is in early July. By then I might be a lot more up to speed on the shakuhachi also. 

I ordered a 6-hon shinobue (the one I have now is smaller/higher, an 8-hon) that's of a different make, about twice as expensive, but if I like the sound I might order an 8-hon of this other type. It's still not a natural bamboo one but made of a kind of bamboo composite. I guess I'll have it in a week or two. The order's about 5800 yen, so I'd say around $60 but since the yen's gone down it's probably more like $50 but I think the shipping will be about $25. This new type is colored black, and will only take a few bindings to "snazz" it up and if it makes a clearer sound it will put me that much closer to being out there busking. 

 

Start of a zombiful Spring

 I listed 15 things on Ebay last night and figured I'd done enough practice in the shakuhachi class so I went to sleep, and woke up around 3. I had coffee etc. and left a bit before 4, and stopped at the library first to drop off post office packages. 

The zombies are out and about. The warming weather means that like lizards and other lower life forms, they're more active but at least right now they're kind of dozy, unaccustomed to the warmth. There was a zombess staggering around in front of the downtown post office, at one point even standing on a small shelf that's part of the styling of the building, lecturing to an imaginary audience. By the time I had the bike locked up, though, the thing had wandered around the corner. 

I put the packages in the chute (1930s design so it works) and when I came out, the zombess was fooling around with some kind of paperwork. What kind of paperwork would a zombie be concerned with, anyway? Applying for a new garbage-pile to sleep in? Asking Food Stamps to supply them with more brains? 

I went to the bank and put my paycheck in and my own math and the bank's were only off by 25c or so, so that's fine. 

I decided all I needed to do with any urgency was get some coffee filters and I could get those at Nijiya so I doubled around and picked up bubble mailers at Amazon then went to Nijiya and got some things including coffee filters, and an unagi bento and a little can of coffee. I ate at one of the benches that's in the shade there on Jackson St. It was nice to be out of the woods financially, to be caught up on shipping, 

I went into Nikkei Traditions to look at the new shipment of Aloha shirts and figured there are two I ought to buy. At $120 each we're talking north of $250 but since I plan to have two changes of clothes when I go back home, one to wear and one to wash, it will be worth it to me. 

I rode back here and unloaded things and packed a couple of things I can carry without needing the bike trailer, and rode up to FedEx to drop off the two things, then 99 Ranch for things like these roasted peanuts that taste good and are cheap, and some cold fried shrimp for dinner. 

I stopped by H Mart for other things, checked the computer place and didn't find anything computer-y but did get 6 nice boxes for mailing things and also did some work cleaning up the trash enclosure there, in a sort of payment for the $200+ of hard drives and RAM sticks I pulled out of there last week. 

I rode on home, put things away again, and started out with my step stool etc. to raid the medical place. On my way out, I noticed a food drop; 3 boxes of cans. I sighed and loaded 'em up, and ran that load up to Tom's. Tom and Colin were unloading some of those frames used to hold stone samples, and after putting the boxes of canned food on Tom's outdoor table, I held down one end of the framework thing Colin was holding the other end of, while Tom drove his truck forward, taking the lift gate out from under it. 

Tom took the food inside and we hung out and talked for a while. I told Tom about the Matsuri festival this Sunday, with food and beer and taiko and sure to be great fun. Tom told me his latest doings like going up to see a mutual friend who lives up in the mountains to get some welding done on his truck. 

Our mountain-dwelling friend has, according to Tom, been raided by "the alphabet agencies" for polluting his creek and for someone else's piece of culvert that washed down and various things. Mr. Mountains is getting fined, will go to court, blah blah. The guy's harmless but pretty anti-establishment and I don't know how it's gonna go but it doesn't look good. I have a little theory that it's gentrification. Someone doesn't like the idea of a non-wealthy guy living around them. 

Dinner was some cold fried shrimp from 99 Ranch (they often have fried shrimp and fish that I think they just take, that are a bit past their optimum for sale as fresh raw, and deep fry them, and sell them in packages really cheap, just the kind of thing a penny-pinching old Chinese person will like - or me, if I come along) and some kim chee from H Mart. The shrimp are fried shell on, although the shells are thin, and I went through them and took the legs and tails tips off, and peeled off what of the shells I could, although I still got plenty of that tasty chitin in my meal - basically I was eating ze bugs and with a big smile- yum! 

April shakuhachi class

 I woke up at about 5, which is perfect for what I had in mind. I'd practiced before bed last night of course, then gone to bed at something like 9AM. 

I'd polished my shoes, finished my load of laundry and hung it up and then when the clothes stopped dripping, spaced the clothes further apart so they could dry better, and had a fan blowing on them. Also washed my hair, brushed/flossed, shaved, basically taken care of enough things that when I got up, all I had to do was take a dry T-shirt from the newly dry laundry, some other fresh clothes, clean up a bit, gather my shakuhachi stuff together, and head to class. 

Of course I was early, and there was not that much tempting at Nijiya so I just got a package of sliced Swiss cheese and a small can of coffee, and ate 4 slices of the cheese, leaving 10 for two snacks. 

I went over to the temple and had a seat on the bench they'd built just a few years ago, just before covid I want to think but it may have been during it. It's near some bamboo that was planted the same time and that is doing well.

I thought about the time when I was little that we visited somewhere that had big groves, a forest really, of bamboo. The dry leaf-covers that end up on the stalks look like little boats, sort of, and I wanted one to make into a little boat. I just had to wash it first, as it was dirty, and set about doing this in the little stream that was there. The "dirt" turned out to be thousands of tiny splinters! My mom had a hell of a time trying to get them out using some kind of sticky tape. I'm thinking this was at some state park or something because those tend to have basic first aid stations and people who will have the tape for taking out splinters. In any case, I can't look at bamboo without thinking about that time. It was pretty funny, looking back. 

Pretty soon the two little old ladies who are regulars came along and I went in with them. Rinban was already there, noodling around on his shakuhachi. Kevin was there too. 

We worked a lot on Golden Chain, working on bending the note which I can do, but half-holing is more reliable. The trouble is, when we were actually playing through it, even Rinban wasn't flatting the notes and it made it sound very different. There was a lot of discussion of how to flat the notes, what note we're really talking about, the concept of going up to a note you bend down, because you're going up a half-step instead of a whole step, etc. Then we'd play through it again and people weren't flatting the notes. I even found little places in the discussion to casually play the parts they weren't doing right, correctly, and even singing those parts which due to the key of the song meant sounding a bit like Frank Sinatra but I didn't care, I wanted people to hear it. But they don't. 

I'm not going to make a big deal out of it though. I'm a beginner and we're all beginners, and it's the job of beginners to learn and if even the guy teaching the class isn't hearing what's going on then there's not much to do but just play it the right way, his way when needed, and keep learning. 

What's great about the class is that it's inspiring and makes me want to practice more and it feels great to have other students who are working on the same things as I am. 

I rode back here, got out the step stool and went over to the medical place which had nothing, but got an "English" cucumber and a chayote from the veggie dumpster, and got back in here. Next I took some of the wood and junk that's behind the nearest trash enclosure and took it around to the other side of the complex and tossed them out. My long term plan, of course, to get all that stuff out of there and have it neat and clean. 

Lugenpresse

 I woke up around 4, and gradually got the tax forms I needed downloaded and printed out, and filled them in through a combination of following the instructions and cribbing from last year's forms. 

Thanks you Kinokuniya! I'd been there a month or two ago and bought a fine ballpoint pen to do taxes and important papers with, and the one I got there - that was less than $5 - worked excellently. For some reason the print on this year's tax forms is smaller than last year's and it would be awful trying to use the standard cheapo Bics I have around here. 

I did two copies, one marked "copy" in red pen to keep for my own records and one set for the IRS, and wrote out my check for $3005 and change. So I was right, in that I did have enough in the bank to pay my taxes, but I felt I'd not be wise to take any more money out of my bank until after I'd been paid. I was correct as I have about $3080 in there right now. 

I expected the post office to be a madhouse but while it was busy-ish for 9:30 at night, I think, it was not open and I had to use one of the drive-through boxes. There was a guy with a messy car taking lots of time at the one I intended to use and this was actually good because I discovered they have a conventional opening on the other side so I was able to put my envelope in OK. 

Then I went over to H Mart which is open until 10. I had $40 cash on me and was going to treat myself. I got a cucumber, two kinds of sashimi, and a 6-pack of Lagunitas near-beer. 

Around back, I found that one of the workers had put out a milk crate full of stuff, most of it I was not interested in as it was starchy sweet rice cakes in sauce and rice bowls and stuff, but there were three packages of the Korean form of futomaki, with a price of $10 each, and I took those. Two had beef and one had fish cake. 

There was definite zombie activity out there. An ambulance had its siren and lights on as I passed the railroad tracks, and went into a parking lot that's alongside the railroad tracks - a business building where no one will be this late at night, but of course zombies lurk along the tracks. And I saw a few zombies on their zombikes with Mad Max trailers full of their zombelongings, or more likely, someone else's belongings. But they didn't bother me as I was too fast-moving and purposeful, I think. 

I got back here and had a good old sashimi feast with cucumber slices and near-beer.  

I also sorted out and boxed up the result of another food drop, to take to Tom's place. And I took the packages of Korean futomaki and took the fillings and the seaweed wrappings and put those in bowls (a big bowl of the beefy ones and a smaller bowl of the fish cake ones) and put the rice out for the birds. 

Eventually I got around to packing things and I packed all the things I had ready to pack, some of which had gone into overdue status. When I was done I found 9 more things that had sold and have them ready to pack when I wake up. 

Big news right now is the lawsuit by a voting-machine company against Fox News, the main organ of the Fascists.  Fox (Faux) News has admitted defeat, or is afraid of what will come out in a trial, and settled for the usual millions of dollars. Essentially, Faux News was flat-out lying about the voting machines, spreading what Cheeto Benito called "Fake News" and being what he and his cult members called by the Nazi term "Lugenpresse" or "Lying press".

I practiced shakuhachi a bit but not for long. A problem I'm running into is the deep breathing I use in playing is also the deep breathing I use to go to sleep, so I get really sleepy, put the shakuhachi away and go to bed. 

I woke up at almost 5. I packed some more FedEx things and then loaded the bike up with a bunch of food for Tom and my packages and got out of here a bit before 6. 

I went right to Tom's and just started unloading stuff onto the table in front of his place, and the commotion brought him out. We talked for a bit, and he offered me some zucchini he'd just cooked in his rice cooker but I said No thanks, I've just had a big cup of black coffee. 

I went to the post office and dropped off post office things, and then stopped in H Mart as I had two $1 bills in my wallet and about 70c in change so I was going to get a cucumber. Inside the store, I remembered I had about 1/3 of the cucumber from last night left over as I'd saved it for tonight so I got some spicy peanuts instead. 

I dropped off the things at FedEx and found just plain nothing behind H Mart, and didn't really find anything anywhere else, except the electric lighting place had a whole, new, Paris Baguette "Signature Roll Cake" which costs about $20 so I took that. 

I came back here, dropped things off, and set out again with the step stool to the medical place where I found someone was already there. This particular bum said his name was "Ralph" and I held a chummy conversation while we both dug away. My finds were a classic desktop telephone still in the box just like it came from Ma Bell, and a bunch of software CDs. Ralph said he lives in an RV and had electrical power so he was glad to get the microwave that was tossed out, and he got a lot of the little frameworks that adjust to one's head inside a welding helmet. Not things I care about at all. 

With the warming weather, the zombies are certainly out. Some real Mad Max ones out today but none of 'em bothered me. 

My last errand of the day was to take the latest food drop and do something with it. I was going to just haul the 3 boxes of cans over to Tom's but then I thought of something a bit easier. I took the boxes of canned food over to the place by the bridge, across from Intex, where I've often dumped things in the past. I put the boxes on the edge of the asphalt and then cut the boxes all the say open so they open kind of like flowers, putting the cans of food on full display. The most oblivious zombie will see them then. But really, zombies won't touch canned food and my "target audience" are the people who will take the food home and actually cook it and use it. 

 

Rain overnight

 I got back here and managed to accomplish a haircut, which doesn't take all that long really. 

By then it was about a half-hour until Ken was due and he showed up right on time. He wrote me a check for last week and this week also. We talked about stuff while we unloaded a file cabinet he's gotten "But it was free", he said. "It's the free stuff that's the most expensive!" I replied. I came up with a place in the office to put it, by moving some other stuff. 

Among other things, Ken pointed out that the new file cabinet and the other things along that wall could be arranged more efficiently (there are gaps inbetween) and I thought a bit and said I'd actually like to really re-arrange things, putting the file cabinet next to the fridge and what's next to the fridge, where the file cabinet is. 

We settled down and talked about the usual bunch of things. Ken was kind of hopped up and I had to remind him, "Well, I gotta get to work on those tax papers". So he finally left around midnight. 

I relaxed a bit and cooked some dinner - soup with "MaMa Creamy Shrimp" seasoning, veggies, and the third and final portion of the surf clams. This time I cut them into strips and as I did the 2nd time, just put them in the bowl for the hot broth to warm up when I poured it in. And of course a hard fried egg on top. 

I didn't even finish all the clams, but went out into the rain - yes it rained overnight - to put about a third of them left in the bottom of my bowl out for the birds. 

Then I looked at the situation in the office - the things displaced by the file cabinet had to go somewhere. I put a big transformer we'll never sell (it turned out to not even be listed) went out for the bums, then I decided to take apart this big fluorescence thing which turned out to have a ton of parts including some neat optical stuff. It was big enough to be a huge pain in the ass to ship, but the parts will be easy to ship. 

I also took a stereo with some cheesy speakers that's been here since I moved in that Ken had gotten because "I might want a radio". "I've got radios" was my retort. At least that was a lot easier to take apart and Ken will come out a bit ahead of the $25 he spent for it at Goodwill and I don't have to look at the ugly thing any more. 

Time to relax, have some green tea, practice, and go to bed. 

I woke up at 4 after having a weird dream. I was with a friend at a sort of seashore-themed gift shop that in the dream world was familiar with me as I went by it at least once a day on the main road of the beachy little town I lived in, in the dream world. I went in with my friend because it was high time I checked it out, I figured, after seeing the front of the place so often. 

Right inside at the nearest table, they had a huge "horse conch" and not only that but a left-handed one. The spire was broken, the broken piece kind of sitting on top but loose. I was so eager to show how the shell can be used as a trumpet that I blew on it, minus the loose piece, getting a dolorous tone. 

But this was the trap. Because the shell was broken, anyone handling it could be blamed for the break and so we were. Plus the proprietor of the store was aided by some retired Marine type guy with dementia. So the game became one of humoring Dementia Marine while hoping he'd forget why he'd been put in charge of us and we could sneak off. 

I woke up and put my bedding away and had some coffee, aspirin, and taurine. Yes, I have a big bottle of taurine powder I got a few years ago with the idea it would help me in my detoxing from alcohol. I'm not sure it did, but last night I'd been thinking that Red Bull is basically caffeine and taurine, so if I have my strong chicory coffee and a dost of taurine each time, it will be like having a Red Bull without the expense and extra shit like weird sweeteners. And what I'd noticed about Red Bull is it would make me more alert without the "jitters", which I thing the taurine helps with. 

So, getting ready to do my taxes .... 

One thing I notice is, essentially, the internet is shutting down. It can't do this all at once because that would raise a great hue and cry. So it's doing it gradually. Reddit, for instance, may have a discussion of say 180 comments, and you'll get to see 10 or 15 of them. If you click on the "more" button at the bottom that might get you another 5. 

YouTube is becoming very inane, lots of glittery ADHD stuff and while serious documentaries are still on there for now, like early BBC Panoramas and the excellent 1960s documentary about Alan Turing that's better than anything newer, you have to know they're there in the first place and explicitly search for them. Good luck discovering them unless you already have... 

URLS must. be. typed. in. in. full. or you don't get to go to a page, even though it used to pop up first on Google Search. We used to memorize phone numbers, now I guess we're memorizing URLs. Or keeping them written on an index card. 

I've not gotten a single email showing interest in my Craig's List offerings which is really strange. Selling things on Craig's List may just not be a thing any more. Since I refuse to sign up for the cesspool that is Facebook, I may have to try to meet my savings goals simply on my weekly paycheck and what I bring in by busking. 

At least all the things I have on Craig's List now are things I got for free. I sold Ken the two things I actually had money "in" and I can probably sell him on other stuff I'd planned to stick on "CL". 

Busking ... I need to get out the little can of stain I bought and the black hemp cord and "doll up" the cheaper Shakuhachi Yuu and get out busking with that, or I need to get back into the habit of taking the trumpet out busking. Frankly if I can use the trumpet to make what I'd sell the trumpet for, then I really don't give a shit if, just before leaving for home, I take the thing to a pawn shop and get whatever I'm going to get for it. 

Some cheerful news: The crackers are starting to cancel each other. https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/18/us/woman-shot-wrong-driveway-upstate-new-york/index.html As was observed in the original covid-19 hysteria, Fascists, deprived of the ability to travel where "the other" is to oppress them, and "the other" not coming into the fascists' territory, will prey on their own because they have to prey on *someone*. Although, while the old cracker was absolutely in the wrong, bands of roaming crackers in rural areas are a real danger. They're a violent bunch, as I observed living in an area that's 95% white, 95% Republican, and 95% on Welfare. 

Getting an early start on the doom

 I'm getting an early start on the doom here by starting this post very early Monday morning. I called Ken last night and he thinks he'll be OK and come by this week, so I'll get paid. Theoretically. 

I listed some more things on Craig's List and lowered the prices on a few things I have on there already. That's sort of my plan, to keep lowering prices until someone bites. 

On r/busking they're saying that busking income is down by quite a bit, which makes sense as people realize that No, we never did recover from 2008 and we're on another downward slide from there. 

On Reddit in r/collapse they're talking about how in parts of India they're already getting temperatures of 40C which is 104F. With high humidity, those are lethal temperatures. There are also strangely high temperatures being reported in odd places from Ohio to Canada. What I haven't been seeing is any mention at all of unusual temperatures in Hawaii. Looking at what weather reporting is still existent, it seems that Honolulu is in the low 70s during the day right now and about 70 at night. 

I got some practice in and went to bed around 8AM maybe closer to 9, then slept in until 4:30 or so. 

I called Ken and said there's no need to to come by tonight (when he comes by it's always time-consuming and tiring) because I won't have time to go to the bank until Thursday anyway, so he might as well come by on Wednesday as usual. 

He said he has a file cabinet he wants to bring by. I asked in anguish where we're going to put it. "It can be used to store stuff!" he enthused. I said our problem is we have plenty of room to store stuff, and too much "crap!" taking up room. So Ken will come by, take up tons of my time wrestling with the stupid file cabinet, and keep me from getting things done unless I stay up all night. 

I am really, really close to burn-out. If I were going to stay with playing trumpet, I think I might have already put my things into a storage unit and arranged to stay at Tom's. But trumpet's a deceptive dead-end as it's not a fit for Hawaii at all. And I'm not ready yet for busking with either flute, plus busking season doesn't start for another couple of weeks, on May 1, at earliest as it's still too cold and windy out there now. 

I am heartened by the fact that last night I got curious and did some looking around on line and for some reason Hawaiian seashells, not specimen quality but just regular old washed up on the beach stuff, are going for higher prices than ever. There are a number of factors at work in this I think. 

Firstly, kids don't go outside and fish and collect shells any more. They're inside playing video games. The natural environment in Hawaii has flourished as a result, and everything from reef fish to seashells to wild/feral animals are doing great. Secondly, I think people have finally learned to differentiate between Hawaiian shells and junk from places like the Philippines. Some really cheap shit used to be passed off as Hawaiian and somehow everyone was OK with that, collapsing the prices for shells actually collected in Hawaii. 

Lastly, there's a taste now for things that are "artisanal" and "authentic" that was not present in past decades. 

And there's a (honestly justifiable) distaste for work these days. This is natural and normal, as even animals won't work if they don't have to. It's a basic survival instinct. Why go out and pick shells when you can just work the system and get food stamps and welfare? Or you can deal drugs, beg, pickpocket, steal tourists' luggage, any of a number of things that will pay more for the same or less effort and time? This is why buskers are extinct in my area but beggars still abound - beggars make more. 

And so, "natural "things, seashells included, are thriving in Hawaii and with only a few mainland transplants caring about these things and fewer still gathering them and putting them on Ebay and Etsy, I think I've found something I can do that would be a lot better than electronic surplus which I've developed quite a distaste and disgust for. 

In other depressing news, Craig's List keeps finding new ways to be shittier, and now it's not even possible to search for things in it by list, it's all these thumbnails that take up the whole screen, imagine being at a flea market and someone's selling CDs by having them in a big chaotic pile, that's the visual effect. I put three things on there last night and lowered the prices on some other things and have not received a single email showing interest, which is really unusual and I think the effect of Craig's List and a recession economy vying with each other to make things worse. 

I just have to hang on for another year and 2/3rds...  

I went out at about 7 to get rid of some trash, check the medical place (nothing) and drop off some food at Tom's and talk with Tom and Colin a bit.  Zombies are out and around, but then that's why I carry weapons. 

I got back in at 8, the equivalent of being out until 11PM in the before times. 

 

 

A sort of day off

 As much of a day off as I get, anyway. 

I practiced last night, some shinobue and some shakuhachi. I'm getting pretty decent on "Golden Chain" except for my crappy beginner tone, of course. 

Someone's got a nice bamboo shakuhachi on Craig's List right now for $450 and I'd really be tempted except I don't have the money and I've already got 2 Shakuhachi Yuu's plus probably going to have three Aulos shinobue's to transport in my checked bag back to Hawaii, plus my three silver flutes that will go in my carry-on bag. 

I slept in until 4, and had a weird dream about ... Chet Baker. Like, knowing him and living around him as a regular guy like he's a regular neighbor who's always on my porch borrowing things or just hanging out. It was weird. Especially as the real-life Chet Baker was a druggie who'd steal anything not nailed down to buy his dope. 

Part of the dream was my taking my own trumpet out and playing along with a band but not on the bandstand with them but off to the side, and my finding that as long as I played softly, somehow my fingers would move automatically and make the music come out with no wrong notes. 

In real life, not only was Chet Baker a druggie and a thief, but that's only how music works when  you've put in a ton of hard work at it, like hours and hours a day, for years. 

This is why I keep telling my Oahu friend that my aim, once back in Hawaii, is to live doing as little documented work as possible, and probably to collect social security right away. I'd rather "work the system" getting food stamps and scrounging and playing street music and getting my fishing and foraging in, than work anything like a job which would take up tons of my time and limit me to practicing/playing only about an hour a day as I'm limited to now. 

I left here at about 5, maybe a bit after, and rode up to 99 Ranch. First I got a couple of tea eggs and a can of black coffee and had that, then went inside and managed to spend about $35.50 of the $36 I had on me. I got all kinds of neat stuff though. 

                                                       Like this weird can of coffee.
 

I stopped by Tom's on the way back and he wasn't there but Rob, one of his hangers-on was there, and Colin, the other hanger-on, the one with a speech impediment who's heading up to the Pacific Northwest "As soon as I can get a thousand dollars" he said. He gets Disability, works a bit for Tom, and earns a bit running errands for the bums on Crack Alley down the road, so he'll have it fairly soon. 

I talked with Colin for a bit and whatever canned things Tom doesn't want, he likes, so I said Great I'll just bring it all over. Except the stale old cobwebby brown rice - no one wants that. 

At least now Tom knows about his one dumpster that is great for collecting fruits and veggies especially it seems on the weekends and I'd told him about the bell peppers that were there and he'd gotten some. If he's going to be vegetarian and not spend on food, he's going to need fresh veggies. 

I was going to go to a thing today, actually, that's over in Cupertino. It's really bad timing that they timed it for "tax weekend" and in the end I didn't go. For some reason my complexion has several blemishes on it right now, I need a haircut and a good scrub and clean clothes, and since "there's never a second chance to make a first impression" I decided not to go. 

I'm worried about finances too. Ken didn't pay me last week so theoretically he'll pay me for last week and this coming one on Wednesday. Hopefully he'll be over his bladder infection and dehydration by then and all better and back to work. 

When things collapse, they tend to do so "slowly at first, then all at once". I can probably earn enough to live on and keep a storage unit, sleep at Tom's, just by playing trumpet. But it would take the landlord probably 90 days to kick us out of here, plus they'd want to stall on it in case Ken finds a way to keep paid up or his wife Suzy does. 

Plus if everything melted down here like gasoline hitting a Styrofoam cup, I could buy a new (used) laptop and use the internet up at the FedEx place ($35 a month or so to have a sort of "business presence" there) and I'd be out from under the non-compete condition I'm under with Ken right now. That means I could start up on Ebay again on my own and all the cool shit I find that goes into Ken's Ebay listings would go into my own. 

Although, blasting out the pops on the trumpet involves no inventory, no shipping, etc yadda yadda and probably pays as well as an Ebay business would. This is a major thing with Ebay and online selling in general. You get to *handle* a lot of money, you're not necessarily *making* a lot. 

I just need things to hold together for the next year and 2/3rds.

Toxoplasmosis gondii has entered the chat

 I got 15 things ready to list last night but they took a lot of preparation and pretty soon it was 6AM and I called it quits. I'd done well, though, pulling at least a couple hundred dollars in RAM and small 1-terabyte hard drives out of the computer place dumpster. 

There were Apple laptop lids and all kinds of stuff in there and I got some nice foam envelopes and anti-static bags and stuff out of there too. Frankly I was surprised to see that dumpster enclosure unlocked on a Friday night. 

I practiced on the shakuhachi, long tones and Shinran Sama and Golden Chain. If it's nice for busking in another month, I'm going to need some repertoire and also I'll need to get out the stain I'd bought and some cordage and stain my plastic Shakuhachi Yuu to look more like bamboo and ought to put some bindings on it too. I might even try using some red paint to paint inside the bore and finger holes which could either make the sound clearer and better or could mess up the sound. This is why I want to do these mods to my "cheaper" $200 Yuu than the fancy $700 one. 

I woke up at 4 and had packed two things, and packed a third thing, a transformer, so I had three packages for FedEx that I could carry without needing the bike trailer. I left here at 5 and rode up to FedEx and dropped off the packages. 

Then I went to the computer place to check their dumpster again - at the very least I wanted to see if it was locked up again or what. It was unlocked and someone had really gone through it, taking the (aluminum) Apple laptop lids and a ton of stuff, actually leaving the level of junk in there much lower. I took a little look around but only found a CPU they'd left somehow. 

I went over to the Sanmina parking lot to check on this big thing those bums had been taking parts off of. I got a thing that's some kind of contacter I think, and two industrial buttons. 

I came back by way of the complex where Grill-'Em is, and the veggie dumpster there had a ton of red bell peppers, oldish green onions, lettuce, some OK zucchinis, and some broccoli. I took some peppers and broccoli. 

I also checked the medical place and got one little trinket that might be worth something. 

I got back here and unloaded and checked the time - it was only 6. I took off again for Nijiya to pick up some eggs, I figured, and maybe some chives. That's exactly what I got, costing me just under $5. The End Times wind was nice and strong, so that coming back, I was only going a little bit faster than a couple of zombies walking along the other side of 10th, and the zombies were not walking especially fast. 

I got in at 7, the equivalent of being out until 10 in the before times. 

OK so the "toxo" ... My Big Island friend, Pat, sent me this random email about the antics of his cats, how this one can climb here and that one almost can, blah blah blah. I was a bit puzzled then noticed he sent it to Dave, my Oahu friend also. 

I replied with something, as I must, about How many cats does he have, and how I - hope they're not eating too many native Hawaiian birds. 

Pat replied by sending me some article by someone in the Midwest who purports to be a scientist and knows cats eat birds but is letting his cats out anyway. Hello, the Midwest doesn't have the kind of birds that are wiped out by cats. And the Midwest is blessed with hawks, falcons, owls, and even eagles, all of which will happily snack on cats. 

I sent back an article about how much damage cats are doing in Hawaii, this one as it turned out complete with gory photos. Pat did not seem to appreciate this. 

So Pat's a crazy cat guy. And I thought, Wait a minute, let's read up on toxo. It turns out that it kills more people - roughly twice as many - in the US than salmonella. And it can cause, yes, muscle aches and all the things Pat complains of and thinks is a mystery disease doctors can't cure. 

Guess which nation has a ton of toxo in the human population? The US. Guess which one has a very small incidence of it? Japan. Trailer-park trash US vs. at least somewhat sane, normal, Japan. 

Pat is not replying to my digs about his cats with logic but with "feels before reals". And this sharing of inane cat details makes me wonder if Dave's place is teeming with cats also. Two crazy cat guys. 

Oh, and Pat, the vegetarian with such tender feelings that he's rebuked me for talking about fishing once I'm back in Hawaii, is supporting at least 4 cats, who are obligate carnivores. And frankly you can feed one human on what it costs for 4 cats. And Pat complains about not having money! 

This is the time I have to admit fully that both of these guys are useless and are not going to be any help when I move back to Hawaii. 

I am not a pet person. If I were 100% utterly convinced I was going to stay at the rural place for the next 15 or so years, I was considering getting a good dog, an Australian shepherd, that I would raise from young, would live closely with me, sleep next to my bed, etc. because in the rurals a good dog is a very good thing. Because in the rurals a good dog is a tool. 

I have no need of a dog here, even a little yappy one to be an intelligent alarm, because this place is pretty secure, I've got good neighbors, etc. Plus an industrial area is not really good for a dog. I've never had the desire to have a cat as I'm able to keep the rodents and roaches down just fine without one, and cats always make the place hairy and cat-smelling. 

When I was first out on my own I was astounded at how, with just myself living in a space, how clean the space stayed. In the Army we had a lot of people in relatively small spaces and things stayed super clean because Hello, humans can do things like shower and wash their clothes, don't shed tons of hair, don't piss and shit in the corner, etc. 

I've always been much more in favor of, if not befriending, at least observing and offering little kindnesses to animals that are wild and are living on their own terms. 

I've kept chickens and am proud to say I can keep a healthy, happy flock. But that requires doing things that someone who thinks of them as pets won't do. 

I'm freaked out about taxes because as could be predicted, Ken's still not feeling well and didn't come by last night. So I won't be paid until next week, unless he drops by Monday, not until after my check to the IRS has been mailed. My buying the half-dozen eggs and a sprig of chives was about all I dare to spend until I do my taxes and write out the check and see how much "room" I have. 

This is an interesting place to be because I'm sure I can take care of my taxes (pretty sure anyway) but if, say, my bike gets stolen it means I'll be walking everywhere for a month or two while I save for a new one. And I can't breathe a word to Ken because I'm the one who's supposed to be a good saver. 

At least I noticed that in Japantown, other than the cold wind, there were a lot of people out and it felt to me like, if I had some songs under my belt and could belt them out against the wind, I might have earned a few bucks if I were out busking. Certainly in another month when I can consider busking season to have started (making a 5-month busking season) I can start getting out there and seeing how it goes. 

I may have been making a lot of money at times busking here on the mainland with trumpet but as I've mentioned I assume that I won't make that much in Hawaii. A $10 or $20 session would be perfectly fine. But my change of instrument means I can try places that are unthinkable with the trumpet, like the big Vietnamese mall south of downtown and in front of the little Chinese bakery in Mountain View as well as in front of any 99 Ranch.

Marklar

 I practiced last night, shinobue a bit - worked on Sakura which is on the little instruction sheet that came with it - and shakuhachi, worked on the full scale, long tones, Golden Chain, that final line in Nori No Miyama that's hard for me, etc. 

I woke up at 4, and packed things. I took off with the things at about 5:30 and dropped off more canned food and pasta at Tom's. We hung out and talked a bit, and it was more mellow than yesterday when there was that conflict between Colin and Tom. 

Tom's going to put up a roll-up door so he had a huge orange-painted steel girder, apparently to something like pallet racks but even bigger. Interesting! It'll be fun watching that go up. 

I took the post office things to the post office and swung by Kim Tar Barbecue where they were out of fried chicken. 

I went to H Mart and got a cucumber, a can of Mr. Brown "black" coffee (it's not black, it's got 16 grams  I think of carbs so it's got some sugar in it) and a little package of sliced cooked pork belly that looked good. That all came to $13 and change. 

When I went out, a guy pulled up on a bike, that I could tell he puts a lot of miles on. Short, very stout guy named "Dan Just Dan" who works at Valley Med and commutes from Sunnyvale. We had a great time talking about bikes and things, and he told me even the janitors at Valley Med make $29 an hour and yes I could get hired. It'd be tempting as hell if I were about 20 years younger. Pension, too, after 20 years, and of course it's unionized. And I could say I know Dan Just Dan. 

Ahh, well. 

As I crossed over Coyote Creek a zombie was staggering along and I took a wide course around it, and it croaked out in a zombie-voice, what sounded like "Marklar". 

I got back here OK and there are zombies out on the road but I managed to avoid them or at least look not worth attacking. I put the box of brown long grain rice that was left from the latest food drop over by the railroad signal, where a food truck was set up. The rice was kind of old and spiderwebby, but the guy there said "Thank you" so I know what's going into *their* arroz con pollo. 

The ideals of Communism ignore the realities of natural resources and the laws of physics.

 Quote from u/Forsaken-Artist-4317 on Reddit. 

It's correct, too. Marx and Engels were working from an era where the Industrial Revolution was just getting its feet under it and it looked like things would get better and better if the rich would just share. They came up with a brilliant theory as to why the rich won't share and in fact the whole system of capitalism falls apart if they do, but an overarching fact is, there's not going to be much to share soon. 

This sounds theoretical but if affects all of us. The reason why the homeless have to be out on the street, immiserated, dirty, gibbering, violent, is that they're necessary to capitalism - to keep the rest of us scared to death of stopping our work. 

Thus, even my idea of the homeless being put into Happy Fun Camps with free junk food and free drugs, as elegant a solution as that is, won't happen because then they're not underfoot, ever-present, and flat-out dangerous to we workers, as a reminder to keep working. 

I just packed two things: A box of 25 ethernet cables a guy had bought, and two optical things that are essentially big, and very heavy, blocks of aluminum. That 2nd thing made for a 45-lb box right there. (The ethernet cables were light). 

I packed up a ton of canned food and two grocery bags of noodles, plus the two packages, and headed - slowly - for Tom's place. He was there and I put the stuff in his front room and we shot the shit for a while. Just stuff like how much apartments cost in this time and that time and other inane things. We sat in the sun and it was really pretty nice. 

I had to go, though, at about 7 and left, and took my boxes to FedEx and dropped 'em off, picked up a tortilla box behind the Mexican place, then looped around to the electric lighting place (nothing) then Sanmina (nothing also) where there was a bum working on a piece of equipment big enough to almost live in. It looked like some kind of ... plotter? Part of it is a giant slab of granite so it involves optics. 

The guy was wrenching away on it and I was friendly and took off a couple of small things that didn't have too much metal on them and asked nicely in each case if I could have them, and that was OK with the guy so that was cool. His girlfriend(?) showed up in a truck and as there was nothing else I saw that I wanted that I thought the guy would give up, I stepped back and she got down to wrenching on the other side of the thing. At least I like to be in good terms with the local scroungers! 

I stopped by the medical place and picked up a lot of little fans of a type we've already got tons of but I guess we can always use more. And I grabbed two big boxes, like 36 inches long by I dunno, 32? They're new, and have creases so they can be made larger or smaller as needed. Plus I got some other things. Pretty good. 

I went back with the step stool and with more room on the trailer, and just found a few packing boxes. 

I got back here and the welding place had put their trash can out. As always, I looked to see because at least in the past they've put out really handy bubble envelopes and useful packing stuff in general. But the thing was almost empty. 

Game on, I decided. There's a lot of scrap wood and junk around the back of the trash enclosure that I think is "ours" if we ever felt like paying for a dumpster, and I think that stuff ought to go. So I used my big orange plastic bin to take a couple of loads of junk over to the trash can and dump the stuff in. On the 3rd load I noticed the lid of the trash can down - that's funny, I hadn't put it down. There was also a big bag of trash in there. Oops. But there's no car around, so this is kind of proof positive that they've got someone who lives in there overnight. Or something. Anyway I got the hint. 

I got the trailer out again and used it to take the last load of junk to a dumpster on the other side of the complex. I'll try to get a load done each week, that won't be too much, and before long that area will be clean. 

I called Ken and he said the doctor had told him he had a bladder infection and had gotten dehydrated. He said the dehydration kind of made sense as he'd done a bunch of yard work and then drank "a bunch" of whiskey. As for the bladder infection, this is the great thing about being able to go see a doctor. Bladder infections, apparently, can be really bad especially in older people and can make a person go really loopy, mentally. Ken said he didn't feel anything, and the doctor had asked him about that. So now he's on antibiotics I guess and will have a follow-up visit. 

He may or may not be able to come by tomorrow, which is Friday. Which means the soonest I'm getting paid is Monday. I just want to make sure I'm covered for the check I have to write to the IRS. 

An interesting thing happened when I was talking with Tom today. He's got a hanger-on, a guy named Colin who has some sort of a speech impediment and gets Disability payments. He has a van he lives in and parks in front of Tom's building. I think he also earns a bit of money taking some of the local street campers grocery shopping and such errands, as quite often they get some kind of government check. Apparently he also earns some money working for Tom because ... 

He came up to us when we were talking and asked Tom if it was OK to take a picture of the whiteboard - where Tom keeps track of the hours and pay due to whatever flunky he has working for him. Surprisingly, Tom was against this. Colin said it had been 3 or 4 weeks, I think he said 4. Tom seemed in no way inclined to give Colin any money at all, even though I said he ought to "give him something". Then Tom get irritated, saying this should not be talked about in public like this etc. 

We went back to talking and Colin went away, but I'm even more sure now that I've been very wise to turn down offers of work Tom has given me in the past. He's offered to pay me some crazy amount, like $50 a day, to watch his place while he's gone but then he added so much drama and emotionalism to it that I ended up turning it down. 

Colin's saving up to move to the Pacific Northwest somewhere, where his father is, or a cousin, or something. Maybe just to get away from Tom and this area. So while he might not seem like a guy who needs money, I know he needs tires for his van and something else Tom mentioned. 

And to not pay a guy for 4 weeks? How broke is Tom, actually? It's been a fun game, supplying him with all this canned food and pasta, but he might be stretched pretty thin. I know he's keeping an apartment up in the north bay for his son, and who knows what else he might have going on. He drinks, and is a cheap drinker (beer and E&J brandy as far as I know) but I know myself that even the cheapest drinking is very expensive. 

Still, what this tells me is that while Tom's told me "we'll always have a place for you to sleep if you need it" I'd not want to, if things went to utter shit here, depend on him much. In short order he'll want me to work for him on some project, with pay which he'll use to toy with me like a cat with a mouse, and it will get very petty and political. 

Dinner was soup with shrimp, veggies mainly some garlic rabe I had to use up, butter, and this time around when the soup was done, I fried two eggs hard, breaking the yolks, and splitting them up into bite sized pieces in the pan, then putting on top of the soup. It was really good! This hard-fried egg on top of soup thing I've hit on is a real win.

I spent time fiddling around, getting 10 good things ready to list, but that was time consuming enough that rather than list them at 6AM I just put things I'd listed away, and hunted for and found one thing I thought I'd have to have Ken help me find. 

Yes I'd practiced last night but not that much. I've kept hearing "Honshirabe" or "Hon Shirabe" mentioned a lot in connection with the shakuhachi, and it turns out to mean something like "Basic Tune" or also "From the heart tune" or "Honest tune" if you interpret the "Hon" to be short for "Hon'ne" which means something like "from the heart, honestly". 

It's a lot more sophisticated than "Golden Chain" that's for sure, but it really shows what a shakuhachi can do. And one of the shakuhachi guys I'm subscribed to on YouTube has himself playing it and also sort of play-throughs that go line by line, and even more helpfully, exercises to master first in preparation for this "separates the men from the boys" tune. 

No Sale

 Well, the Craig's List flake never showed up, emailed or anything. Craig's List is slow as hell. If the ham radio swap meet weren't in limbo without a place to be, I'd take my 1-2 times a year and load the bike up like crazy and just sell stuff off there. 

But who knows when the ham radio swap meet will ever exist again. Covid only sped up ongoing processes, but we've experienced something like 10 years of decay in 2. Clubs, associations, gathering places, hang-outs, places to buy, places to sell, all gone. I'm glad I'm starting the process now, to sell things I don't really need to get rid of for another year and a half. 

I practiced last night, shinobue and shakuhachi, and got a fair amount of sleep. I woke up in time to pack one big thing and two smaller things for FedEx. I took off at 5:30, and risked it putting a bag of trash in the FedEx dumpster and that went OK, the drugged-up zombie with the dark colored SUV with the dog in it didn't show up. I did see an older guy in a security guard uniform walking by and we nodded and smiled to each other. 

I dashed into H Mart for a cucumber and had something like 15c left over, which I left in a little stack by the bum, who was sitting there, saying "Here's what I have left, it's not much but it all adds up". No reaction. I think the bum has entered into that rarefied level of bum-dom, of begging out on the center divider of the intersection there. Too lofty to worry about a mere 15c... 

In fact, I thought, after I'd dropped my packages off and was on my way back, the bum is never carrying anything. A real orthodox homeless person will carry everything they own with them. This might take a shopping cart or two, or at the very least a backpack larger than the torso of the person carrying it. The bum has none of these. I theorized that The Jungle, a huge spread-out homeless camp along Coyote Creek, being a short walk away, the bum probably lives in there. 

The truth is there are whole generations of people being born, living, and dying of homeless old age in their 50s or so, contented grandmothers or grandfathers, in The Jungle. 

I was sure to get back here before 8, although it was tight as I went to the medical place and found something pretty good and some boxes and stuff, and got back here a few minutes after. But the Craig's List person never emailed, called, or showed up. 

Before taking off I'd called Ken and asked how he was doing. Normally a late riser, I'd called around 5 and he'd probably just gotten up and had his breakfast pancakes or waffles. He said he was going to  go to the doctor "They close at 6" and I said I'd done some looking around on Google and the wobbly legs thing seems to be just another stage in the peripheral neuropathy of diabetes. Maybe his potassium was low, though, I said. He said he'd just has a potato and those have plenty of it. 

Ken could greatly extend his life and enjoy his life if he'd go low-carb but I've talked with him enough about it. He could almost certainly gear his diabetes back enough that he'd just have to take the metformin pills he started with. But he's gonna die for pancakes... 

Other than these piddly things it's just the usual horror show. Some of the more regressive states are trying to bring in travel restrictions, first for women they suspect might be leaving to another state to get an abortion but if they get that done then it will be game on. Travel will likely be restricted for women and girls, period, if they're not accompanied by a male spouse or family member. And that male spouse or family member had better be a Party member in good standing with a solid alibi. 

Then will come in travel restrictions for others. Those deemed "politically unreliable", non-whites, etc.  I'm a registered Democrat but I'm also registered as white (my driver's license in the past used to have things like "WHT" or "CAUC" on it but I can't find anything like that now, but there are some mysterious numbers that I'm sure say just that, as race-obsessed as the US is) and I'm sure they have some way of telling that I'm a gun owner, in fact for all they know I own not just a couple guns but several. 

I really don't expect most of what I'm talking about to kick off until after the general election in late 2024, and really we're into 2025 by then. I plan to be long gone.