Tag: life

Friday’s Theme Music – Wild Life

Ashland, Oregon — Friday, April 17, 2026.

The clock is running; here we go.

It’s up to 44 from its overnight low of 32 F. Clouds and fog were graying the blue sky but now they’re gone. Unbridled sunshine lights up the green spring world. We’re heading for the upper sixties, they say.

Mom’s deadline is today. 30 days ago, she told the assisted living facility she was moving out. She then started searching for someone to ‘take her home’. It’s been a tug of war since. Today is quiet; no texts from Mom or sisters. I wait on pins and needles.

There’s breaking news — again.

Crude oil prices fell to $90 a barrel based on something Iran was said to agree to. The stock markets were quick to shout good news and go up, but then, that is its modern nature.

We won’t know what it means for a while. Higher oil prices are already embedded in our economic fabric. It will take a while to get it out.

Will the war be over? Will the US military forces leave that area? Depends on what Trump’s bones say.

Even if this war ends, what will happen next? What nation will Trump next attack?

Waiting to see when SOUTHCOM kills some more people in boats in the Pacific.

Still waiting to see what else is in the Epstein files.

Still waiting to see what’s really going on with Trump’s health and mind.

That brings me to “Wild Wild Life”, a 1986 song by Talking Heads.

I’d read a piece about Kavanagh saying, oh, based on Dobbs and original intent, the military draft could be illegal, because it’s not mentioned in the Constitution. That encourage me to scowl and mutter about cherry picking precedence and the dead hand of our founders — all white men — orchestrating our response to modern issues via conservatives who want to turn back the clock.

That all triggered Der Neurons to bring “Wild Wild Life” lyrics into the morning mental music stream.

Like sitting on pins and needles
Things fall apart
It’s scientific

Sleeping on the Interstate, oh-oh-oh
Getting wild, wild life
Checking in and checking out, oh-oh-oh
I got ’em, wild, wild life
Spending all of my money and time, oh-oh-oh
On too much wild, wild life
We wanna go and we go where we go, oh-oh-oh
Ah, doing wild, wild life

I know it, that’s how we start, oh-oh-oh
Got some wild, wild life

h/t to musixmatch.com

Hope your wild, wild, Friday is a safe, prosperous, peaceful one for you, maybe with a little celebration and libation. Have the best one you can make.

Coffee, please.

Cheers

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Fascinating Dream: Aliens

It was a fascinating dream for me. When I awoke from it, I thought, I’d been watching a television show or movie. With a bit of surprise, I then realized I’d been in the dream, along with my wife and two children, which were my offspring. But I was both involved by watching as a minor character and sort of injected into some scenes.

My wife and children and I were tourists processing through some station. Aliens were there; sort of Klingon-like, in light grey blue uniforms with a jacket which has a deep red collar and a matching red shirt under it.

While traveling, all of us are stopped by these others who basically want to enslave us. It’s a troubling scene. I’m passive with my wife, not sure what will happen to us verses the others because we’re human and are supposed to have a different status. Nonetheless, we’re detained with the rest.

There’s then a scene where our captor and one of the captives go back and forth about what’s go be done in this cave where we’re being held. I realize that they’re having a disagreement over a matter of reference and perspective.

The captor keeps saying, ‘to your right’, and the other keeps saying, ‘that doesn’t make sense’. I then try to clarify that the captor is talking about the direction from the way he’s facing, while the captive is facing the opposite direction.

I end up getting up and pointing this out on a diagram they have posted on an easel.

We then ‘watch’ as captives are taken to another place to mine stuff. I don’t know what they’re mining. They make a show of it. I then suddenly realize that they’re secretly mining knowledge.

When the captive of before decides they’d learned enough, he reveals that he has a weapon. Shaped like an obelisk – really, just like a foot tall reproduction of the Washington monument, but shiny, silver-gold – the captive holds it up. Pressing a button, he sends a signal.

Suddenly, all these other dead, sleeping, and collapsed aliens awaken and rise. Each of them are equipped with a like obelisk. Using these, they overpower their captors.

As my wife and I watch, we realize that the revolution has begun.

Dream end.

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Old Humor – Amazon Echo Silver

My sister and I were talking about how Mom sometimes talks to Alexa as if it’s a person. That reminded me of this old SNL skit. Hope you laugh as much as I did.

Cheers

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The Comparison: Computer, Trump

It feels like my computer is starting to treat me like it’s Trump. It doesn’t tell me what’s going on or give me a reliable time window.

I’m accustomed to my computer telling me to do things but explaining why it’s doing things. They gave me options: do you want to update and shutdown, or shutdown without updating? Other options were also available.

Along those lines, the computer would inform me about how long it would take — three minutes, two minutes, six.

Yes, they were using computer time. This is not ordinary time. Comparable times are shopping time and waiting time.

“It’ll be just a minute,” I hear. “Maybe two.” Those minutes compound into ten. Fifteen.

Worse, though, are NFL minutes. Especially the last two minutes of a half or game. I did some research and the average final two minutes of an NFL game lasts ten to twenty minutes. Some estimates show that the final two minutes of a four-quarter NFL football game can consume about five to ten percent of the game’s total time, which is wild if you think about it.

The NFL does give us a ‘two-minute warning’. Unfortunately, they’re very terse about it. “This is the two-minute warning.” They should add, “The next two minutes can take anywhere from two and half minutes to eternity. Go use the restroom now, get something to eat and drink, and let your family know where you are.”

Computer time has now overtaken the NFL’s final time minutes as ‘the time that can’t be measured’. My computer doesn’t tell me many times now how long updates or searches will take. It leaves it vague: “This might take a few minutes.”

You think?

I was running a process to check for memory leaks the other night. Yes, on my computer, not for me.

Anyway, the computer warned me, “This might take a few minutes.”

Thirty minutes later, I was still waiting for an update.

And that’s like Trump. Time doesn’t mean anything when he makes promises or projections. Well, neither do facts, for the most part.

For example: Trump was asked when he would come up with his replacement for ACA. Two weeks, he told us, over five years ago.

When will the Iran war end? “When I feel it in my bones.”

Great.

Sounds just like my computer.

When will the search be finished?

“When I feel it in my hardware.”

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

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The Little Competition Dream

It seemed as if I was in a quasi-military unit again. A new guy, young, I arrived as a strange ceremony was underway.

I took it in at a glance: large wooden but modern yurt. High wooden ceiling. People in uniforms – could be military, marching bands, firefighters – in groups, waiting.

Two senior people took me aside. The taller one said, “Your timing is perfect. We’re going to have you do the judging.”

I was like, the judging? I said nothing.

They led me to a round wooden table. On it was a brown wooden basket. “Basically,” it was explained, “you find their flare and trinkets and count them up.”

They were doing activity as this was being explained. I watched, following, gleaning the essence. This was a competition. The groups had stuff. I had to find it but judge it not on its merits but on its quantity. This would not be hard.

I counted some stuff. Marked it. Initialed the little slip of white paper it was on.

My instructors laughed. “Don’t bother initialing it. That’ll slow you down.”

I was affronted. I wanted accountability. Precision. But said nothing.

One of the groups’ leaders, tall guy with a rambling reddish-brown beard, was watching and spoke up. “He’s doing the judging? Look how slow he’s going. This is going to take forever.”

The tall leader responded, “He’s just starting. He’ll speed up.”

Indeed, I was speeding up, and learning the challenge’s intricacies. For example, in one green uniform, they had hundreds of small pockets. In each was a little gold trinket. Each had to be found and counted.

That’s how it was with all of these uniforms. The teams found things and hid them. Everything was small, and it was up to me to find and count it. Pretty nuts, I thought.

A woman in uniform, waiting to hand over her garments for my inspection and counting said, “This is pretty important to people.”

I nodded; I could tell.

She continued, “They put a lot of work and thought into it.”

“I can see that,” I replied.

The small things were adding up and time was going faster. I found new places to stack it all, keeping it neat and orderly.

Dream endThe Little Competition Dream

I was in a quasi-military unit again. A new guy, young, I arrived as a strange ceremony was underway.

I took it in at a glance: large wooden but modern yurt. High wooden ceiling. People in uniforms – could be military, marching bands, firefighters – in groups, waiting.

Two senior people took me aside. The taller one said, “Your timing is perfect. We’re going to have you do the judging.”

I was like, the judging? I said nothing.

They led me to a round wooden table. On it was a basket. “Basically,” it was explained, “you find their flare and trinkets and count them up.”

They were doing activity as this was being explained. I watched, following, gleaning the essence. This was a competition. The groups had stuff. I had to find it but judge it not on its merits but on its quantity. This would not be hard.

I counted some stuff. Marked it. Initialed the little slip of white paper it was on.

My instructors laughed. “Don’t bother initialing it. That’ll slow you down.”

I was affronted. I wanted accountability. Precision. But said nothing.

One of the groups’ leaders were watching and spoke up. “He’s doing the judging? Look how slow he’s going. This is going to take forever.”

The tall leader responded, “He’s just starting. He’ll speed up.”

Indeed, I was speeding up, and learning the challenge’s intricacies. For example, in one green uniform, they had hundreds of small pockets. In each was a little gold trinket. Each had to be found and counted.

That’s how it was with all of these uniforms. The teams found things and hid them. Everything was small, and it was up to me to find and count it. Pretty nuts, I thought.

A woman in dark green serge uniform, waiting to hand over her garments for my inspection and counting said, “This is pretty important to people.”

I nodded; I could tell.

She continued, “They put a lot of work and thought into it.”

“I can see that,” I replied.

The small things were adding up and time was going faster. I found new places to stack it all, keeping it neat and orderly.

Dream end

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Saturday’s Theme Music –

Ashland, Oregon – Saturday, April 11, 2026.

Another rainy day for the valley. Thunderstorms struck again yesterday but it was just a fifteen-minute visit. We’re seeing 54 F now and anticipate 58 as the high…

Nothing from Mom…more of the usual about Trump. Many headlines about the historic spaceflight. So many seem so hungry for it, like they needed some good news.

I read Paul Krugman’s post about the labor news. He speculates that we may have achieved a zero growth state. Since people aren’t immigrating into the country, there’s not more demand for jobs.

Makes you wonder. If population is flat and either sated with their purchases or too poor and working too hard to buy them because high gas, food, and healthcare prices are taxing their finances, who will buy new goods and services?

I was proud and pleased by how Boise, Idaho, responded to a ban on pride flags. Narrow-minded Idaho legislators specified what flags are allowed in their quest to limit freedom of speech and expression. They were particularly incensed that Boise had flown a gay pride flag for over ten years. Oh, the horror.

That couldn’t stand, so they passed a law against it, enforced with hefty fines.

Boise responded beautifully, by wrapping poles with gay pride flags.

On to a quiet day for me. Today’s music came from Papi walking around the room this morning. All of a sudden, he whirled and looked back.

I turned and looked as he stared, alert. The two of us went down the hall together. I don’t know what he saw or heard. After a moment of standing in the bedroom, Papi gave his face a little wash, turned and left, resuming his previous activity.

That was all enough for The Neurons to pull up some lyrics from the Oasis song, “D’you Know What I Mean?” and slot the song into the morning mental music stream.

Lyrics:

Step off the train all alone at dawn
Back into the hole where I was born
The sun in the sky never raised an eye to me
The blood on the trax and must be mine
The fool on the hill and I feel fine
Don’t look back cos you know what you might see

Look into the wall of my mind’s eye
I think I know, but I don’t know why
The questions are the answers you might need
Coming in a mess going out in style
I ain’t good-looking but I’m someone’s child
No-one can give me the air that’s mine to breathe

Yeah, don’t look back because you know what you might see…

Hope your day is filled with powerful energy that takes you in the right direction.

Cheers

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Thursday’s Theme Music — Gambling

Ashland, Oregon — April 9, 2026.

Springish today. After an evening of solid rain, clouds maintain a presence and sunshine is muted. 54 F is our temperature now, with the chance of more rain and a high in the mid 60s. Right now, if you walk out and the clouds are merged, it’s chilly. But when sunshine is freed, you feel the heat.

Late blogging/writing start. We ran errands this morning, looking for plants to fill gaps. Then, since we were out and around grocery stores, quick runs to pick up a few items.

There’s also been heavy texting with my sister about Mom. Mom asks when sister is selling Mom’s house and also talks about plans to move in there, leaving us wondering, what? D Day, when Mom said she is moving out of the assisted living facility, arrives soon. Everyone advises her not to, but she’s adamant about her intentions, even if she lacks plans.

Is the Iran War cease fire holding? The news cycle runs fast these days and I haven’t been at my computer for hours. All manner of disasters, attacks, and accusations may have happened in the four hours since I was last on the ‘puter.

Bad news is emerging out of the US Postal Service. They’re suspending FERS contributions due to a cash flow problem. But this stuff has been going on for a while. Rural areas have been suffering as the USPS closed rural post offices and satellite operations. Meanwhile, as the cost of a first-class stamp keeps rising. Now, thanks to Trump’s Iran War, the cost to ship things such as the mail are also rising.

This all puts more stress on our economic system and the most vulnerable of our society. Consider how many elderly and rural people depend on the postal service to receive medication and bills. They’re the ones who were most negatively impacted by several aspects of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill and are the ones who will suffer most under his proposed 2027 budget.

It’ll be interesting to see how our political leaders respond. Polarized, Congress has been gridlocked and even routine budget seems like titanic challenges. Can a Trump -led government rise to the level of thinking and cooperation needed to address this problem or will we wait until it’s a crisis.

Today’s news and environment encouraged The Neurons to play “Living in the Past”. This Jethro Tull came out in 1969. It’s all about waiting to live in a more peaceful, relaxed time, so you can see how it plays in this period.

Hope you have a relaxed day, filled with peace and grace, and if not that, that you emerge safe and unscathed.

Cheers

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My Young Friend’s Thoughts

A young friend wrote this email and sent it out to our group last night.

::sigh:: I feel particularly human today. As I sit at the white kitchen table in front of my computer screen, the light of our day star shines through a faceted crystal as it twirls in the open window, scattering little rainbows everywhere as if the sun is giving me a way to appreciate its beauty without hurting my eyes. I look at the spectrum of visible colors dancing around me and sit with the mirrored spectrum of feelings I’m experiencing today. 

Homo sapiens have officially traveled farther away from our blue planet than ever before, and I am beaming with pride for that collective achievement. The Artemis II team represents the best we have to offer, and this mission to push beyond our earthly constraints and explore out into the unknown is the very essence of what it means to be human. NASA’s “Earthset” image was the first thing I saw on my Instagram feed when I woke up this morning, and it genuinely brought me joy to share in a new view of our home world and where we are in the cosmos that has never before been seen or captured by human eyes. This is a monumental moment, and I love it. 

Then I saw the list of collaborators on the Instagram post: @nasa, @potus, and @whitehouse. My joy rapidly receded and was replaced by other equal and opposite emotions. Here we’ve got a team of brilliant, dedicated, model humans bravely taking us to the frontier of exploration, and their massive accomplishments are getting co-opted by a demented, cowardly, serial grifter and his pandering White House that exists only to stroke his rotting, intumescent ego. The most anti-science, anti-woman, anti-diversity, anti-progress regime our modern nation has ever suffered is basking in the achievements of people they vocally despise while they try to cut $5.6 billion (23%) of NASA’s budget, a move that would slash their science program in half. The first woman to fly on a moon-bound mission is currently out there making human history on a spacecraft named after a Greek goddess that represented and defended everything quintessentially female, while at home, white Christian nationalists who advocate for ending women’s suffrage and support “biblical patriarchy” are leading prayer services at the Pentagon and gaining political power. The first Black astronaut ever to be sent on a lunar mission is piloting our future into the stars, while an alcoholic, abusive, lascivious, vapid, Fox News host whose greatest recent accomplishment is not sexually assaulting anyone this week, fires Black service members because “woke”. Kind, thoughtful, smart people are out there in the lifeless vacuum of space naming a bright spot on the previously unexplored dark side of the moon after a person they loved and lost, while down here, a senile, malignanat narcissist who rapes kids threatens to wipe out “a whole civilization” in the war he started so he and his billionare buddies could stay out of prison and make disgusting sums of money while helping Israel genocide their way into an exciting new realestate opportunity. This is a monumental moment, and I hate it.    

This is what I mean by feeling particularly human today. I’m feeling absolutely everything right now and it’s wonderful, and horrible, and joyous, and infuriating, and inspirational, and disgusting, and just, overwhelming. And here we all sit today, uncertain of the future because our collective fates lie in the tiny, decaying hands of a greedy, failed business man with a full diaper and an empty heart. There’s a nonzero chance that everything changes today, and I wanted to share my perspective in case anyone else was feeling the gravity of this moment in a similar way but hadn’t expressed it. I love this planet with everything I have, but I hate the world we’ve made.    

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