So, I’m changing information in online accounts. The procedures were all originally all set up for us do online — technological DIY, if you will — back in the Internet’s infancy. Since then, the net has been terrorized by security threats and thefts.
Anway, the saga begins…
I log into my account. Navigate to my profile. Go to the phone numbers. Try to change the number.
Can’t!
Because I have already added that number.
I attempt to delete that number.
Can’t!
In order to do that, they want to text me a security code on the number I’m attempting to delete because the number is no longer valid.
Yet, that’s listed as the primary contact. I can’t move the other name up. It has a strange, inexplicable logic to it.
No other options are available online. My only choice is to call them and explain it all.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Saturday, July 25, 2026.
July is romping to an end, but summer is cranking it up. Cooler today. 89 F is our high
It’s fire weather season, not just here in the US, but around the world. Calm here today but wildfires are burning in Spain and France. Hundreds of thousands of people are threatened and evacuated. Yet climate denial continues.
A paper last year in Nature concluded that the odds of encountering extreme, climate-driven fire years have risen by 88% to 152% globally compared to the pre-industrial era. Further, studies aided by supercomputers have concluded that many of the extreme weather, including these enormous wildfires, would not have occurred without human emissions.
Trump and his administration have responded by rolling back protections. Yet, Trump thinks he’s improving the world, because he and the billionaires are getting wealthier.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
Gas was averaging $3.10 a gallon at that time, although some regions were much higher, almost to $4 a gallon. Now gas average $4.11 a gallon, and threatens $5 a gallon in some regions.
Trump is cunning. Trump is not very bright, though. Trump made a big deal about the United States drilling oil. Doesn’t make us energy independent, does it?
No. One, it always depends on the kind of oil and coal taken from the ground. Not all of it is equal.
Two, this is a global situation. Because the US lacks the refining infrastructure and raw material to create the gas and diesel we need, we’ll continue to be dependent on others.
Three, building new infrastructure is hampered by rising costs, which are pushed up by Trump’s tariffs — because the US steel industry doesn’t make the steel needed. Additionally, climate change and extreme heat is driving the need for technical change. But the costs and climate change are also driving up insurance costs.
Additionally, the rising gas and oil prices make construction more expensive. So does the greater demand for energy being generated by AI and Data Center construction. Yet, Trump cut other, more sustainable energy technology, such as solar and wind.
Then Trump started a war — after promising not to, of course. The war drives up oil and gas consumption and demand while increasing oil and refining costs but also decreases supplies.
Yet, Trump continues ignoring climate change and disasters. What a genius — NOT.
It says a lot more about Trump’s supporters and Republicans that he can lie, break promises, promote his backward foolish logic, and still get away with it.
Trump’s failures are MAGA’s failures.
Trump’s failures are the GOP’s failures.
Today’s song in the morning mental music stream is “Ramblin’ on My Mind”. It’s an Eric Clapton cover of a Robert Johnson song. Saddens me some; Clapton used to be a performer I enjoyed and admired. But he and Van Morrisson made a lot of comments during the COVID-19 pandemic that depressed me.
This song came about because I read that Trump made a long, boring, rambling speech at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner last night. Many said that Trump bombed. Anyway, thinking about him and rambling and his flailing mind inspired The Neurons in my own wobbly mind.
My wife looked at me with hope. “Did you find my phone?”
“What?” I asked.
She explained. She’d called and left messages. She’d lost her phone.
My phone never rang.
After cursing that, I examined my settings. The phone should have rung. It’s possible it rang and I didn’t hear it.
Anyway…
My wife lost her phone. She thought it happened at the coffee shop. I called them to ask if they had found it. They looked all over as I called the number.
“No, sorry,” Katie told me.
We drove over to the coffee shop to look for ourselves. No sign of the phone.
Then I got a phone call from her phone. Children were making a prank call.
I tried talking to them. I offered a reward. I texted them with an offer to buy the phone back.
No response.
After two days of trying, my wife accepted, the phone was gone. She needed to cancel the service for that number.
She called the support center.
A bot answered. It explained it was a bot and asked her what her problem was.
My wife explained the situation.
“Hold on,” the bot said. A few minutes later, it came back on the line. “Can you explain your problem again please?”
My wife did.
“Please hold,” the bot said. “I’ll be right back.”
The back came back and suggested, “Turn your phone off and on.”
“No,” my wife replied. She explained again: she did not have her phone. Her phone was lost. She needed to cancel the service.
“Hold on,” the bot replied. It went away. My wife listened to hold music. The bot came back: “Turn your phone off and on.”
“That won’t work,” my wife answered. “Let me speak to a human.”
The human had her sorted in thirty seconds. If she had spoken to the human in the first place, the call would have been under a minute.
Instead, she was forced to endure having a bot tell her, “Turn your phone off and on.”
It’s a hot, sunny day. 85 F now, 95 later. But the air is free from smoke.
Fasted last night so I could go get some blood tests done today. So then went off and ate breakfast after that was completed.
Then the morning got a little complicated. My wife lost her cell phone. Children found it and wouldn’t return it. Yes, rewards were offered. She didn’t have the phone locator turned on, a choice she made years ago but now regrets. She also didn’t set up phone security. Fortunately, she used it for nothing except texting, games, and phone calls.
BUT —
It was the primary number for receiving security texts for different accounts. So I’ve been going through the very painful process of changing that number with several companies. It isn’t just ‘log in and fix it’; it’s log in — or, call us. Give us your name, DOB, address, social, UserID. Now, take a photo of both sides of your driver’s license. And a selfie. Now hop on your right leg three times, turn in one complete circle, spit toward the sun, and declare, “New phone number” three times.
Classic first world blues.
It’s pretty apparent these days that Trump’s shallow thinking has exhausted its ability to come up with new ideas. Deeply into repeating himself, Trump is inflicting new tariffs on us (even though the US is projected to refund $85B in tariffs and our customs duties receipts are negative $26B in June) and trying to add his name to another building as part of Operation Epic LOOK — SQUIRREL!
We’re becoming the land of the poor, sick, and broken under Trump. According to a Harris Poll, 95% of U.S. adults believe the country is facing a severe affordability crisis.
The other way that we can take this quote is that Trump made another Freudian slip. He’s actually acknowledging that he’s doing a shit job, and that anyone after him will look much better in comparison.
Given his declining physical appearance and the way he often babbles, I wonder if he’ll be alive to see the next Oval Office inhabitant.
Maybe Trump will pull a Mitch McConnell. That might be even why the GOP isn’t trying very hard to prove Mitch is still alive; they’re testing the waters to do the same with Trump.
Today’s song came to me as I was driving and thinking, returning home from my lab visit. I had the radio off, thinking about my dreams from last night. With my daily routine shifted, I thought, “Come up for air.” From that, “Miracle Mile” by Cold War Kids began playing in my morning mental music stream.
May the season’s winds carry you to a happy, healthy, and safe future.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Wednesday, July 22, 2026.
Blue sky, sunshine, and high temperatures have arrived. 86 F now, gonna hit 99 F with a heat index of 105.
The sky is clear of smoke today. Our major threat, the East Evans Creek Fire, now 12 days old, is 26% contained. That’s good news but it’s a tragedy for the land, vegetation, and animals.
Circle back. Knowing how MAGA Trump thinks, a gas station chain calling itself Freedom Fuel opened up gas stations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Knowing how to get Trump’s attention, and some free publicity, the gas was priced at $3.47 a gallon, the 47 cent part being in honor of Trump, which makes total economic sense.
Trump publicly pumped the gas station and its price, even though the price went up to $3.57 after a few days. He then crowed about how he promised gas prices were going to come down fast.
Your Trump Quote of the Day:
That was then. This is now. “The American Prospect” and others are shedding light on how that low gas price of $3.57 came about.
No evidence, of course, exists to support this election fraud fantasy, any more than his claims about the war ending back in March or that drug prices were coming down 1,000%, or that vandals damaged the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. He made fantastic claims about that, too, changing the damage from 250 feet to 300 yards.
How does anyone ever believer him about anything?
Today’s music circulating in the morning mental music stream is “Your Wildest Dreams” by The Moody Blues. Justin Hayward wrote the song while thinking back on a first love. But My Neurons, oblivious as they are, took ‘the wildest dreams’ aspect in reflection to Trump’s ongoing wild claims.
I hope your day is calm and fun, relaxing and healthy. Stay safe, wherever you are.
Ashland, southern Oregon — Tuesday, July 21, 2026.
Another hot day, but this one is cloudy. 83 F now, we’re destined for life in the 90s. The wind has changed, protecting us from the East Evans Creek Fire. The firefighters to whom we owe so much every year have it 18% contained. The fire has consumed over 16,000 acres, and mopping up is underway.
My younger sister, Gina, has been shepherding the project to move Mom’s things out of her home and sell the house. Part of the project is the collection and review of personal papers. I wrote Mom many letters from my assignments around the world. She kept them all, along with letters from her siblings and mother. My sisters are busy recalling the different eras of Mom’s life: the men she was with, where she lived, what was happening to them. A very chaotic period, it finally settled when Mom got her GED, went on to become a nurse, and bought her house. But for Mom and my sisters, its seems like an anguished period before that.
My two youngest sisters. Gina is on the left. The photo was taken in 2019.
Trump double standards — TDS — are in the news today. Trump has unleashed new retaliatory tariffs on Canada. Trump cites how Canada discriminates against the United States by importing fewer American cars and not selling American whiskey. Trump fails mentioning his history in this: that he began that trade war with Canada, that their ‘discrimination’ emerged because he attacked Canada with tariffs and suggested Canada should be the 51st US state.
Meanwhile, Trump is blasting Iran over human rights violations while he actively undermines human rights in the US. Ignoring due process and legal status — and even court’s decisions to not do things — Trump uses ICE to intimidate people, especially citizens of blue cities, run by Democrats, to coerce them to cooperate with them.
Classic Trump: do as I say, not as I do.
If you’ve been paying any attention, you ought to know this by now. You ought to know that Trump is only out for himself. You ought to know that Trump is vain and self-centered, and tone deaf. It’s all about him and how he can destroy our heritage to improve how he’s perceived.
That’s why Trump has done petty things with his predecessors portraits.
It’s why Trump paved over the historic Rose Garden and tore down the East Wing.
He had to change it all to make it about him.
That’s why he’s trying to rewrite history, enlarging his part while dismissing what women and people of color did. That’s why he’s trying to elevate himself to the same position as the founders.
That’s why he wants a place on Mount Rushmore.
That’s why Trump wants the Nobel Peace Prize.
That is so, so, laughable. Trump has nowhere near intellect of the founders. He lacks backbone, principles, and moral courage. His current active role in trying to curtail freedom, democracy, and voting rights would infuriate the founders. It’s scandalous how he’s enriching himself through the Oval Office, something that the founders actively warned the nation about happening.
President Lincoln famously warned that the United States is more likely to be destroyed from within. Ironic that the one doing so — Trump — likes to compare himself to Lincoln.
Another example of his double standards come via the Epstein file, Algaegate — the Trump Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool cockup — and the Jan 6 insurrections.
Trump and his administration keep hiding the Epstein file, ignoring the victims.
For Algaegate, he had a person arrested and charged with vandalism. In classic Trumpyism, his DoJ has screwed the case up.
For Jan 6, after his supporters were responsible for the death and injury of law enforcement officers and the destruction of Congressional offices, Trump pardoned him.
There is the clear line of Trump Double Standards.
Today’s song in the morning mental music stream is “You Oughta Know”. Alanis Morrisette. 1995. A scathing rebuke of a former lover. Listen to that crowd singing with her:
Lyrics:
And I’m here to remind you Of the mess you left when you went away It’s not fair, to deny me Of the cross I bear that you gave to me You, you, you oughta know
Yep, when Trump goes away, he’ll leave a huge mess.
I read an article in “The Independent” about World Cup fans’ American experience. This, though, contains a critical observation to me. I added some emphasis.
“Many landed expecting the politically fractured country frequently highlighted in global headlines. Instead, they found Uber drivers brimming with recommendations and locals willing to open their homes to strangers. Even as game attendees grappled with the sticker shock of ticket prices, some Americans they met didn’t even know the World Cup was happening, or simply didn’t care.“
Honestly, I knew the World Cup was going on. I see news stories about the games and tournaments. But I am one who doesn’t care about it. Yet, I’m not surprised that some Americans were unaware of the World Cup going on; some of them emerged to vote, unsure about what’s going, back in 2024.
Then there was this from the same article:
“That felt like a proper American experience in Dallas,” Reader said. “He had, I would call it like a proper American setup, like a TV outside, a beer fridge, massive fly zappers, and then massive fans as well.”
Damn, I haven’t been exposed to that proper American setup yet.
“I don’t understand how it’s possible that Iran has the capabilities to fight this way and continue to try to lash out at Gulf countries and U.S. military bases because the U.S. has obliterated Iran’s military, and the president continues to reiterate that,” Bartiromo said Sunday on Fox News.
Gosh, yes, it IS a mystery. How, how, how? Can it be that Trump, the person who told us prices would go down 100s to 1000s percent, Trump who claimed Mexico would pay for the wall, Trump, who was documented lying and is widely perceived as dishonest, is LYING?
The inanity of this Blue Sky post rocked me:
WTF? DEI Bike Lanes? SMFH.
Seriously, these are the idiots Trump selected to run his administration.
