

Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not

Another dream from last night found my wife and I arriving on an island – not deserted but civilized, part of a nation.
We were younger, in our thirties. Don’t know why we were there, but we were returning.
After disembarking from a red and white ferry, we found our car, got in, and began driving home. Leaving the port parking area, we were behind a small, old, Army-green bus. I knew that the driver – a man about my age – had been on the same boat as me, along with a group of quiet, sullen children.
Both of us drove over and parked at a little office to get cleared to go. I arrived there, went in, got my paper and got clearance.
Back in my car with my wife, we prepared to go on. Watching that slow-moving old green bus, I said, “Oh, no, don’t get in front of us.”
He did, pulling slowly onto the narrow, paved road. The road had a few potholes and high berms where the shoulders had crumbled and the dirt washed away. The green bus belched dark smoke.
I figured I was in for a long, slow trip behind that bus. My wife and I talked about the bus. But the bus pulled over to the right. Getting out of the bus, the driver waved us down.
He asked, “Do you know how to get to Naha?”
“Naha?” My wife and I were surprised, taken aback.
He continued on his own, explaining, “I’m going to go fishing there.”
I thought, fishing at Naha? “Yes,” my wife and I answered, talking at the same time. I took the lead. “Keep going on this road. There’s a intersection where you go right. There’s a brown sign that says ‘Naha’ on.”
“Is it a big sign?” he asked.
I laughed. “No, it’s one of those little military signs.” He looked military so I guessed he would understand that. “It’s brown but it’s by itself. You won’t miss it.”
He walked away and my wife and I drove on. “Fishing at Naha?” we said back and forth, wondering, is he taking the children to go fishing at Naha? We could think of better places to go but that was his business.
Dream end
I saw this video on Youtube. This cat is wandering his routes. He talks to himself a lot, it seems. It also seems like he’s looking for someone or something in particular from the way he arrives at places and then says something. Like others, I thought he hurried a little when the police car cruised by and shifted closer to his left.
I like the video because Papi sometimes wanders and I worry, where’s he going, what’s he doing? Also, it’s funny to me that this cat is ‘chatty’. I’ve had several chatty cats in my life. Papi is not one of them. He’s more likely to just give a nod when you ask him something.
Hope you enjoy this as much as I did. Cheers

I did my ‘first of the month’ chores the other day. These include pouring things down into the bathtub to keep the sewer lines cleared, and running cleaners through the washing machine, dishwasher, and garbage disposal. We hunt for organic, safe things to do this with. I do them every month on the first day to keep it all working well.
That’s the dream, anyway.
All transpired as planned with everything except the washing machine. It stopped, showing an error message.
My wife pointed it out to me by asking, “What’s this mean?”
“What?”
“The washing machine isn’t doing anything. It shows ‘rL’ where it usually shows the time.”
I looked. Not because I didn’t believe her. It’s just habit: see for myself. Helps me shift into ‘maybe I can fix it’ mode.
She was right about what it said. The time is always in green. These letters were in red.
“That’s not good,” I wisely noted.
We pulled out the manual and found the error message. It’s specifically for the cleaning cycle and means, ‘something is in the washer’. Nothing is supposed to be in the washer during this process. The only thing in it is the tablet purchased for the purpose.
My wife and I talked about it. “This is what we used before,” we agreed. “It was never upset before.”
Shrugging, I took the standard modern technology route: turn it off, turn it back on.
And it worked.
Ain’t much to add. Go to the site, enjoy the music. Cheers
Happy 4th!



















If you need a little smile, read this piece from the Daily Beast.
An artificially-generated President Theodore Roosevelt managed to get in a few barbs at Donald Trump on Wednesday as the 80-year-old president sought to appropriate some of the 26th president’s glory.
After traveling to North Dakota alongside that state’s former governor, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, to open Roosevelt’s presidential library, Trump was filmed interacting with an AI version of his predecessor, who had no choice but to talk to him.
~snip~
These are my favorite paragraphs. Teddy is responding to Trump after Trump talked about Teddy’s greatest achievement:
“The Panama Canal showed what America could achieve if we held steady and acted fast when the world dragged its feet. That said, I measure my greatest work by the lives improved, parks set aside, food and drugs made safe, the Square Deal given to all—not just to a few,” it told Trump, who has made sweeping budget cuts to the National Park Service.
The Trump administration has also made cuts to the Food and Drug Administration, which some critics argue will increase the chances of unsafe products being purchased.
Trump didn’t get it at all. Thinks he’s like Teddy and will go to his grave telling himself he is.
Like so many other nuances, it’s all beyond Trump.
Temperature is such a funny animal. 72 degrees inside in the winter and we sigh with comfort. So warm! How nice.
72 F inside in the summer — “Brrr, it feels a little chilly,” my wife complains.
Looking askance, I smile and move, catlike to a pool of sunshine streaming in through the window.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Wednesday, July 1, 2026.
July has landed in Ashland. Looks much like June: blue sky, sunshine, but unseasonably chilly. 52 F when I rolled out of bed and fed Papi. Now 60, climbing to the high 70s.
Some of the larger news stories coming out this week, beyond Trump’s Great American State Fair Disaster and the various Roberts Courts rulings, is about how much wealthier he’s become while in office a second time.
Here’s one article about it.
Donald Trump has boasted about how much money he is making during his presidency as cost-of-living pressures continue to soar for millions of Americans.
The extraordinary comments came as new figures revealed the president reported more than $1.4 billion in income from his family’s crypto ventures last year, fueling claims that he is using the presidency to enrich himself.
To summarize, as most Americans struggle with affordability, job insecurity, and inflation, Trump made more than $1.4B. As POTUS. While We the People pay for him to golf.
Remember when Trump said he would not golf as President, criticizing President Obama for golfing? Ha, ha, fool me once..
Defending himself, Trump insisted that ‘everyone is profiting’. Which. Is. Bull. Shit. That brings us to some Trump quotes.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:

Many reflect that Trump’s handling of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool — Algaegate — reflects his terrible management skills, and how frequently what he claims and the results seen are almost diametrically opposed.
In the same way, Trump’s quote about the stock market and 401Ks in regard to his wealth and affordability show his uncanny ability to lie and exaggerate while demonstrating how out of touch he is with average people and reality.
I am not surprised to read and report that the MAGA faithful and most conservatives applaud Trump’s wealth grab while in office, attributing it to Trump’s skills as a ‘smart businessman.’
Well, then, Rural America, there it is, there he is, Trump, your king, making money off crypto. Hope all of your are getting off your asses and following his lead, because he’s showing you how it’s done.
Daily Kos added the perfect final assessment of Trump, his wealth, and affordability. In the end, it’s all about Trump and what he can get for himself.
Trump crowned himself the crypto president. Then crypto collapsed. – Daily Kos
Funny. Trump declared himself the peace president and started a war and kidnapped another nation’s president. Declared himself a unifier and verbally attacks and insults other Americans while sending in heavily armed ICE agents to grab people off the street. Declares himself the crypto president and crypto collapses.
It’s almost like there’s a pattern…
By the way, how is the Board of Peace doing?
Today’s song is “Ring Rang Doo” by Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs. The song was a minor hit in the 1960s in the US but didn’t make the mark that “Woolly Bully” made. It entered my morning mental music stream when I entered the closet to decide what to wear.
Don’t ask me why it came then, but it makes sense in a Trumpish context. “Ring Rang Doo” is a made-up word that means nothing. Much of what Trump says is about the same.
I hope your July begins on a high note and just keeps going up as we work through the season.
Cheers