Tag: thinking

Sunday’s Theme Music — Lyin’ & Dyin’

Ashland, southern Oregon — Sunday, July 26, 2026.

It’s another 90 degree day, F, with blue skies, sunshine. Dropping nicely into the upper 50s to low 60s at night so we’re able to cool off. No smoke again, knock on wood.

Mom and my sister, Gina, both texted me to announced they’re mad at one another again. Those are the words each used. Both also said they blocked one another. Again. There will be no more texting between them.

Came about because Mom asked for a jacket from her house. Gina responded, your clothes are gone. Your house is being sold. Mom: you got rid of all of my old clothes? Why did you do that? Gina: I told you we were going to. Why didn’t you ask for them before if they were important?

I think this will last about five, six days. Then Gina will wonder, how is Mom doing? What does she need?

And Mom will think, I need my meds. Who can get them?

And the only one always there to do it is Gina.

Trump’s attacks on Iran, launched before spring began, continues through the summer. The war is almost five months old. What has it accomplished?

Trump killed Iranians in the name of freeing them, with an estimated 8,000 to 19,000 people in total killed during this conflict, including eighteen Americans.

Raised oil and gas prices.

Screwed up the global supply chain. Cost nations around the world more money while running down US supplies. Increased our national debt. Well done, Trump! Well done, GOP!

Remember when Trump said this isn’t a war and the GOP went along with that? Recall when Trump said it would be over in weeks? Do you remember when he said, “No new wars”?

I know it’s not news any longer that Trump is a liar, that many people around the world find him dishonest, and many don’t trust him. But as long as there are some out there preaching that Trump is wonderful, I’ll keep posting reminders that he’s not.

With energy prices rising, affordability becoming a crisis for many, the increasing healthcare crisis, rural hospital closures continuing, the ongoing Iran war, and the growing measles outbreaks, I wonder what the tipping point for them will be. From what I’ve read, as long as Trump continues to bully others, lie about what he’s doing, and frames himself as a champion for them — regardless of the tangible impact — they will not turn away from him.

Today’s song is “Lyin’ Eyes” by The Eagles. Seems like The Neurons made a good choice for the morning mental music stream as I think about Trump’s life and words.

Hope your day is rich with peace and grace.

Cheers

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Trump in his Own Words

A brief history of Trump claims through the years.

How Epstein is a close friend. Trump will fix affordability; affordability is a hoax! He’ll balance the budget. Iran’s military has been destroyed.

I suspect that if someone confronted Trump with all of these claims, he would scream, “Fake news!” He’d claim, “That’s not what I said.” Then he would attack the one confronting him. Call them vile. Nasty.

That’s his MO. He cannot face the truth and can’t handle the facts.

For the record, affordability is a crisis for many Americans. Oil and gas prices are flirting with record highs.

His war with Iran is nearing its fifth month.

The Epstein files are still not released. The ballroom is still being built, and the US taxpayer is being billed.

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First World Blues: The Phone Saga

I entered the house.

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.”

AI.

Right.

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The Sisters Dream

I was with several of my sisters. We were all younger than now.

Don’t know where we exactly were. Outside. Mostly flat and sort of muddy to start.

I’d been off doing something and then returned, looking for them, as it was time to go. I found them by a large broken cement sewer pipe coming out of the base of a dirt hill. Multiple bottles and trash was there.

One of the sisters asked, “Michael, can you help us? We want to clean up these bottles but we don’t know how.”

They had two large plastic containers with a spout on top. Way too small to put the bottles in. So I tore the top of the plastic away. They thanked me and we loaded the bottles up, often breaking them. Some bottles were already broken. As they warned me to be careful, I picked up the bottles and put them in the plastic. Then I carried those away, depositing them somewhere safe.

I was ready to go, so I began walking. My sisters were several hundred yards away. I wanted time to myself. Deciding to avoid them, I began running. My sisters called my name: I ignored them, running faster.

I crossed the muddy plain and then ended up on a highway’s wide shoulder. Traffic was heavy to my right. Dusk was coming. Left was a lot of new constructions: houses and stores were being built, but was suspended for the night.

I thought, wow, that’s a lot of construction. The construction and changes threw me off. I hadn’t been in the area for a while. Confused about where I was going, I decided to go back to my sisters.

Turning around, I gawked with some amazement. I hadn’t realized how far and fast I’d run. Running back, my speed amazed me even more.

I reached the spot where I’d last seen my sisters. They weren’t visible. I called them; no answer.

Then I found them, along with their previous husbands, and more of my family. I looked for my wife but she wasn’t there. I saw my younger sister’s ex-husband, JJ, and said hello to him, adding, “Good to see you.”

The group told me we were going to Sharon and John’s. She’s my sister and that’s her husband. Then the group kind of wandered around, dawdling. Impatient, I went to Sharon and John’s house.

It was a small place. In the dining room was a large oval, polished wood table. Arrayed in front of it on one side were three rows of seven baby highchairs. They were different colors and ages. Each had a placard on it.

I was mystified. Like, what’s going on here? Is this where they expected us – adults – to sit? We wouldn’t fit in those chairs. No, they seemed to be set up for something. Classes for children?

Then the chairs rearranged themselves. Many disappeared. Matthew Perry was seated at one of the tables. Reprising his role as Chandler Bing from “Friends”, he did a few scenes. Except, he was the size of a baby.

John came in. I said, “How was that done,” gesturing to Perry/Bing in a highchair. John explained, “Oh, that’s Matthew Perry. He was in “Friends”.”

I answered, “I know all that, but that’s not him. That’s the size of a child. Is that a puppet? Animation?” It was completely lifelike.

We went back and forth, with John explaining the same thing in almost the same ways. I kept asking questions, trying to clarify it, but never got an answer. My sister came in, interrupting us to announce that there were sandwiches in the other room.

Dream end.

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Thursday’s Theme Music — Billions & Trillions

Ashland, southern Oregon — Thursday, July 23, 2026.

Cooler today, although the sky is blue and the sun is brightly shining. 75 F now, we expect a high of 93 F.

The air was much better last night and today, as well. The East Evans Creek Fire is now 38% contained, and there were no flare ups despite yesterday’s strong winds and high heat.

Extraordinary how often things in the news are now measured in billions and trillions. They used to be eye-opening amounts. Now we see them daily in the news:

US House passes record $1.15trn defence bill to fund Iran war

US national debt hits record $39 trillion ($113,616 per person!) and $40 trillion could be right around the corner

Kansas City Chiefs Unveil First Renderings for $3 Billion Stadium Opening in 2031

Google hit with $1 billion in fines as EU braces for Trump battle

Trump made more than $2.2bn last year. Experts say this extraordinary haul is only part of the story

AMD to invest up to $5 billion in Anthropic as part of computing power deal

Meanwhile, down here in the trenches, life is still measured in dollars and cents as we struggle with affordability.

Current U.S. Beef Prices (July 2026)

As of the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data (July 22, 2026), national average retail beef prices are up modestly from last month, with most cuts seeing gains of 0.6%–1.2%. National Average Retail Prices (per pound, USDA Choice cuts unless noted)

  • Sirloin Steak (USDA Choice): $14.45/lb — ▲1.2% vs. June, ▲6.6% vs. last year
  • Round Steak (USDA Choice): $9.84/lb — ▲0.6%, ▲13.3% year-over-year
  • All Uncooked Beef Steaks: $12.88/lb — ▲0.6%, ▲8.5% YoY
  • Chuck Roast (USDA Choice): $9.55/lb — ▼0.6% (but still ▲13.2% YoY)
  • All Uncooked Ground Beef: $7.14/lb — ▲1.1%, ▲9.8% YoY
  • Ground Beef (100% Beef): $6.83/lb — ▲1.2%, ▲9.1% YoY
  • Ground Chuck (100% Beef): $6.98/lb — ▲3.8%, ▲10.1% YoY

Your Trump Quote of the Day:

Of course, Trump had already claimed 20 times that prices were coming down quickly, back in February of 2026.

The price of a pound of ground beef was $6.74 compared to $6.83.

That’s some more of that Trump math.

Same math Trump used to claim that the ballroom would cost US taxpayers nothing:

“It’s a private thing, yeah, I’ll do it, and we’ll probably have some donors or whatever, but it’s about $200 million. So, we’ve been planning it for a long time. They’ve wanted a ballroom at the White House for more than 150 years. But there’s never been a president that was good at ballroom. I’m really good.”

Donald Trump, July, 2025

Back then, Trump was also bragging that the ballroom would cost $200M.

Trump administration quietly shifts $352m in federal funds for White House ballroom

That headline is from June of 2026.

All that has The Neurons playing “Billion Dollar Babies” in the morning mental music stream. The Alice Cooper song (and album of the same name) came out while I was in high school. My friend, Bob, was instantly enamored with both and used to spit out parts of choruses as we went from class to class, a period which I think lasted a week or two.

Alice Cooper was a cross-dressing rock star for a long period. Yet he’s expressed views against transgenders and supports Donald Trump. “(America) got so ‘woke’ with the Biden people, even they thought it was crazy. If a guy says to a coworker, ‘I like your new dress,’ that means he now gets fired? That’s crazy. It got so over the top that whoever ran against the Democrats was going to win. America got sick of the stupidness and all I can say is, in a shooting war, you don’t want a poodle; you want a pitbull.” Wikipedia

Because of this, I don’t often listen to Alice Cooper much any longer.

Hope your day brings fresh air and some good weather, good friends, and good times.

Cheers

4

The State of Trumpland

First, a fine summary about the state of things:

States of things.

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.

Meanwhile, on Fox News, they’re puzzled: how can Iran be fighting back against the United States?

“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.

Enough said department:

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Medical Update

Feeling fine, looking good.

Went through my annual physical on Tuesday, and all seems well. Blood work will be done next week to reveal what’s going on under the skin.

I went through the TURBT procedure for bladder cancer in late June. Next steps are the BCG wash. My urologist first said it would start in July, maybe August.

I mentioned this to my PCP on Tuesday. She was surprised. “Oh, they’re doing them? There was a nationwide shortage.”

Oh.

Forward to today. The BCG wash won’t start until the end of October.

The reason: a nationwide shortage of BCG. The United States has one source, a Merck facility. They’re trying to increase production but that won’t be successful — if it happens — until the end of 2026.

This is only a US issue:

The BCG shortage in the United States has been primarily due to a reliance on a single manufacturer, Merck, which produces the TICE strain of BCG. This dependency became critical after Sanofi Pasteur ceased production of the Connaught strain in 2012, leaving Merck as the sole supplier for the U.S. and many other countries . In contrast, other countries have access to multiple BCG strains produced by various manufacturers . In the U.S., the stringent FDA approval process has limited the availability of foreign-produced BCG strains, contributing to the prolonged shortage.

I’m simultaneously happy that the BCG wash is available and I have the means to have the procedure and frustrated by this continuing trend in the US. We become dependent on one source, and live and die by it.

It’s not just BCG; an article I read the other day recounted the US shortage of 155mm howitzer shells:

Manufacturing woes hamper US 155-mm ammo production

Businesses love to consolidate, buying up competitors, merging to ‘improve production’. Rarely works. Instead, we find ourselves more and more with just one location, putting all our trust and faith in them.

We often won’t modernize infrastructure until it reaches the brink of failure.

And in the US, we tend to wait to earnestly fix things until a crisis is clear. Witness what’s going on with Lake Meade and the growing water shortage. Even there, instead of actively addressing the problem, the Trump administration is paying to reduce consumption.

Something to think about as news and entertainment companies continue to merge.

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